Masks mandatory, schools in Dehradun to follow Covid SOPs

DEHRADUN: Based on guidelines of the Dehradun district administration, the district education department has instructed all institutions to make masks mandatory for all students and teachers following the recent scare of the new Covid variant.
Officials said that heads of all institutions have been instructed to immediately start following Covid-appropriate protocol which includes maintaining social distancing, carrying out thermal scanning, thorough sanitisation, among others.
“An increase has been seen in the number of Covid cases in several countries in the world recently. During the winter months, certain health issues also increase. Taking all this into consideration, we have reactivated the Covid-appropriate protocol in all of our district educational institutions including making masks mandatory for all students and teachers, implementing social distancing, thermal scanning etc,” said chief education officer Mukul Sati.
Officials said that all heads have been instructed to start implementing the protocol immediately. Most private schools are currently on winter break, but will start execution of the guidelines as soon as classes resume, while the government schools will go on leave from January 1 to 10. Covid awareness programmes will also be run in schools. However, sources said the problem lies in implementation of the Covid protocol. “Private schools are able to implement and enforce the regulations. Masks are fine but the problem arises with social distancing, specially in public schools that don’t have the necessary infrastructure,” said a teacher at a public school in Dalanwala. Till Wednesday, there were 28 active cases in the state of which 12 were in Dehradun.