By PTI
MUMBAI: Offline teaching will resume at schools in the city from classes 1 to 12 from January 24, municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal told PTI on Thursday.
The decision came as new Omicron cases and overall daily coronavirus infections in the city have begun to decline.
In-person or offline classes will resume in pre-primary schools too, the commissioner said.
“All schools in Mumbai shall open from Monday,” Chahal said.
Earlier in the day, Maharashtra school education minister Varsha Gaikwad announced that the state government has allowed reopening of schools for classes 1 to 9 for offline teaching from January 24.
As Omicron cases increased and overall caseload began to spiral from the last week of December, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation had closed the schools barring classes 10 and 12 from January 3, 2022.
Mumbai on Thursday reported 5,708 new coronavirus cases, 324 less than the previous day, and 12 fresh fatalities, while 15,440 more patients recovered from the infection, the city civic body said.
With fresh additions, the financial capital’s COVID-19 tally rose to 10,23,707, while the death toll jumped to 16,500, a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) bulletin said.
The daily COVID-19 cases in the city dipped for the second consecutive day and dropped below the 6,000-mark after a two-day gap.
Mumbai reported 324 fewer cases as compared to Wednesday, but the daily fatalities remained the same.
On Wednesday, 6,032 COVID-19 cases and 12 deaths linked to the infection were reported in the city.
With 15,440 more patients discharged during the day, the number of recovered cases soared to 9,82,425, as per the bulletin.
Mumbai now has 22,103 active COVID-19 cases.
The BMC said Mumbai’s coronavirus recovery rate has increased to 96 per cent, while the case doubling rate has improved to 83 days.
As many as 53,203 new coronavirus tests were carried out in the metropolis in the last 24 hours as compared to 60,291 on Wednesday, taking their cumulative count to 1,48,31,298, the bulletin said.
Mumbai’s positivity rate stood at 10.72 per cent, it said.
The rate indicates the percentage of people who test positive for the virus of those overall who have been tested.
As per the bulletin, 4,795 out of the 5,708 new patients, or around 84 per cent, were asymptomatic.
In the last 24 hours, only 550 patients were hospitalised and 79 required oxygen support, it said.
Also, only 4,857 of the total 38,093 hospital beds earmarked for coronavirus patients were occupied in the city, the civic body said.
The growth rate of cases in Mumbai between January 13 and 19 stood at 0.81 per cent, the bulletin said.
Presently, 44 buildings in the city are sealed, but it doesn’t have any containment zone in slums and ‘chawls’ (old row tenements), it added.
Mumbai had logged 20,971 daily COVID-19 cases on January 7, 2022, the highest since the pandemic broke out in March 2020.
Last year, the city had reported the highest 11,163 daily cases on April 4 during the second wave of the pandemic.
Maharashtra on Thursday recorded 46,197 fresh coronavirus cases, including 125 Omicron infections, and 37 more deaths, the health department said.
The daily tally was 2,500 more than a day ago, when the state had reported 43,697 cases.
The department said 52,025 patients were discharged in the last 24 hours, taking the number of recovered cases to 69,67,432.
It said, “46,197 new cases in the state today. Thirty-seven COVID-19 deaths reported in the state today.”
Currently, 24,21,501 people are in home quarantine and another 3,391 in institutional quarantine.
On Omicron, the department said, “Today, 125 patients with Omicron infections have been reported in the state. Of these, 87 have been reported by the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research and 38 have been reported by the National Chemical Laboratory (where genome sequencing of swab samples was done).”
