Schools, Colleges to Remain Closed until August 31

The government has again extended the closure of secondary and higher secondary level educational institutions until August 31 due to the worsening Covid-19 situation in the country.

The decision was taken considering the safety of students, teachers and staffers in consultation with the National Advisory Committee on Covid-19, said an official release signed by MA Khair, public relations officer of the Education Ministry on Thursday.

Earlier, Education Minister Dr Dipu Moni said the government had decided to reopen educational institutions, particularly the primary, secondary and higher secondary ones, in Bangladesh on June 13 if the Covid-19 situation does not deteriorate.

Later, the government announced the extension of closure of schools and colleges till July 31, and the Education Ministry issued a notice in this regard.

The government shut educational institutions on March 17 last year after the country reported its first Covid-19 cases on March 8.

The closure was extended several times after that.

On February 22, the education minister announced that university classes would resume on May 24. Residential halls were also scheduled to be reopened on May 17. But that did not happen due to the worsening pandemic.

Covid situation in Bangladesh

As the Delta variant of Covid-19 engulfed the country, Bangladesh recorded 239 more deaths caused by the virus in 24 hours till Thursday morning.

Besides, 15,271 new people came out Covid positive during the period after the test of 52,282 samples, according to a handout issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

The fresh cases took the country’s Covid death tally to 20,255 today while the caseload to 1,226,253.

The country has been seeing nearly 200 deaths a day for the past two weeks, shattering the records of daily cases and deaths almost every other day.

Meanwhile, the daily test-positivity rate declined slightly to 29.21 per cent from Wednesday's 30.12 per cent while the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a 5 per cent or below rate.

However, the case fatality rate remained unchanged at 1.65 per cent during the period, said the DGHS.

Source: UNB