Delhi schools reopening from November 1 with 50% capacity

Delhi school reopening: All schools must ensure that classes take place in hybrid mode with a max of 50 percent strength in classrooms, Dy CM Manish Sisodia said.

Moneycontrol News

October 27, 2021 / 14:23 IST

Manish Sisodia (Illustration by Suneesh K)

All schools in Delhi will be allowed to reopen for in-person classes from November 1, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia announced on October 28. A DDMA constituted panel had October 26 recommended reopening schools for classes 6 to 8 in Delhi with 50 percent student strength.

The panel noted that there has been no reported instances of increased local transmission of COVID-19 due to reopening classes 9 to 12, according to minutes of a DDMA meeting.

"All schools and educational institutes in Delhi will be permitted to open from November," Sisodia said at a press briefing.

He said that schools will have to ensure that classes take place in hybrid mode with a max of 50 percent strength in classrooms.

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COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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