Ten more children have tested positive for COVID-19 in Uttar Pradesh's Gautam Buddh Nagar, taking the total number of minors who got infected this week to over 20 in the district, officials said on Wednesday.
The Gautam Buddh Nagar health department said 33 more people have tested positive for the infection in the district since Tuesday morning, including the 10 children. The total number of active cases in the district, adjoining Delhi, stands at 90, the department said in a statement.
"Of the new cases reported today, 10 are children. We have not got any information from their schools, neither were the COVID-19 tests held in their schools. "The schools have not reported the cases.Had it been so, they would have discontinued physical classes and we would also have issued an advisory," Chief Medical Officer Dr Sunil Kumar Sharma told a TV news channel.
He had said on Monday that a private school in Noida had informed the health department that 10 of its students and three teachers have tested positive for the infection. And that school has moved to online mode of teaching till next week, the official had said.
Positivity rate shoots up
Meanwhile, with the positivity rate jumping from 0.5 per cent on April 4 to 2.70 on Monday, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said the city government is keeping a watchful eye on the COVID-19 situation and there is no reason to worry until a new variant of concern is detected. There has been an uptick in COVID-19 cases in Delhi over the last few days.
Beginning of fourth wave?
The sudden rise of Covid cases in some pockets of Delhi-NCR has also triggered fears of fourth wave of pandemic. Several cases have been reported in schools of Delhi, Ghaziabad and Noida just days after they reopened fully after a hiatus of over two years. However, due to the sporadic rise in cases, parents are now demanding implementation of hybrid model for conducting classes till the time kids under 12 are eligible for vaccine.
The rise in Covid cases has also renewed fears regarding an impending fresh wave. An IIT-Kanpur study had predicted the fourth wave of Covid-19 in July this year.
A modelling study by researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur suggested that the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in India may start around June 22 and peak from mid to late August.
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