Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Saturday ordered mandatory full Covid vaccination or negative RTPCR report for all those entering the state from Monday, with strict monitoring particularly of those coming from Himachal Pradesh and Jammu, which are showing increased positivity.
The rule on full vaccination or negative RTPCR report will apply to all those entering Punjab by road, rail or air, announced the Chief Minister, adding that if a person is found to not have either of these, RAT testing shall be mandatory, unless he or she has recently recovered from Covid.
Amid reports of Covid cases in schools, the CM has also directed that only fully vaccinated teaching and non-teaching staff, or those recently recovered from Covid, should physically teach in schools and colleges, with online learning option to remain available to all children.
He further ordered prioritisation of teachers and non-teaching staff for vaccination, with special camps to be held to ensure that all are covered with the first dose within this month and those due for the second dose to be also prioritised.
These directives came at a Covid review meeting chaired by Captain Amarinder Singh, who expressed concern about the positivity in Himachal Pradesh and other parts of the country, which has caused positivity in Punjab to also increase marginally to 0.2 per cent in the last week, with RO (basic reproduction number) going up to 1.05 per cent.
The CM has ordered at least 10000 test samples of students and staff from schools to be undertaken every day. Districts, where positivity is above 0.2 per cent, have been asked to shut down physical education for Classes IV and below until the situation improves.
On schools, which have recently reopened for certain classes in the state, the CM said while there were some reports of high positivity in schools, the fact was that intensive testing had shown that the positivity amongst school students is 0.1 per cent against the overall positivity of 0.2 per cent in the past one week. Since 9 August, 41 students and one staff member in government schools have tested positive.
In case the whole teaching staff is not fully vaccinated, those who are fully vaccinated can attend to the students in the school and virtual classes can be taken by teachers who are not fully vaccinated.
The number of students should be suitably curtailed if enough fully vaccinated teachers are not available, ordered the CM, directing schools to allow seating of only one child per bench.