Maharashtra / Schools for classes 1-9 to remain shut till Jan 31 in Mumbai amid rising COVID cases

Mumbai: Mumbai schools from classes 1-9 will remain closed till January 31, amid concerns over the rapid rise in Covid cases, city's civic body informed today. "Schools for classes 1 to 9 will be closed till January 31, in view of rising Covid- 19 cases. School for Classes 10 and 12 to continue," the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation order said.

Students of classes 10 and 12 are excluded from this decision which means they will attend schools in person. Classes for students of 1 to 9 and 11 will continue in online mode, as directed earlier.

The decision comes at a time when Mumbai reported 8,063 fresh infections yesterday in a spike attributed largely to the the highly infectious Covid variant Omicron. Although, allaying fears, the city's civic body has reiterated that 89 per cent of the infections are asymptomatic and 90 per cent of beds are vacant. The total number of active cases in the city currently stands at 29,819.

Earlier, the schools had opened in Maharashtra's capital on December 15.

Maharashtra logged 11,877 new coronavirus cases on Sunday which were 29 per cent higher than Saturday. Mumbai's Sunday spike was also higher than that of Saturday by 27 per cent higher.

Yesterday, Maharashtra recorded 50 new cases of the new Omicron variant with most of the cases (38) reported from Pune. With this Maharashtra's overall count of the cases of the fast-spreading variant has reached 510, including 328 cases from Mumbai.