A dean, a butler and security personnel are reportedly among the personnel who tested positive.
New Delhi:
At least 13 students and four staff members at the University of Delhi’s St. Stephen’s College tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, leading to the application of strict COVID-19 protocols on campus and questions about whether a trip recently conducted college was behind the infections.
Those who contracted the infection were part of a “chapel trip” of 25 students to Dalhousie. The students were tested after some of them developed symptoms of the disease after they returned on March 31.
A dean, a butler and security personnel are reportedly among the personnel who tested positive.
The principal has posted a notice and has asked all faculty members who are scheduled to come to the university to stay home until further notice. Isolation rules have been established for hoteliers.
The event has prompted a member of the university’s governing body to raise questions on the matter, including whether permission for the trip was taken from the university and the Delhi government to organize the trip.
“In light of the reports coming from students, non-teaching professors and some officials, I would like to receive the following information. Did some university students living in the university hostel test positive for Covid after April 1, 2021? Is it true that the Dean of Residence and the College Chaplain also tested positive for Covid after April 1, 2021? Is it true that these two officials had accompanied a large group of hostel students on a trip to Dalhousie in the last week of March 2021? This trip organized by university officials in times of the Covid pandemic? Was the trip authorized by the Director? Was the consent of the parents of the students taken to make this trip “, were some of the questions raised by Nandita Narain, St. Member of the Board of Trustees of Stephen’s College in her letter to the principal.
Delhi has witnessed a worrying increase in coronavirus cases.
On Friday, the city registered 3,594 new cases, its highest daily count this year. Fourteen virus-related deaths were also reported during the period, bringing the total number of deaths to 11,050. The positivity rate in the national capital also rose to 4.11 from 3.57 percent a day earlier, amid a massive spike in cases in recent weeks.
Delhi is among 11 states and territories in the union that accounts for more than 90 percent of cases and deaths in the country, the government said.
Apart from the national capital, Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Chandigarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Haryana have seen a worrying increase in cases. The situation in these states and UT is of “great concern,” Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba told senior state / UT and law enforcement officials during a review meeting on Friday night.
This morning, India added 89,129 new coronavirus infections, its biggest one-day increase since late September, to bring the total count to more than 1.23 crore. 714 deaths were also reported in the last 24 hours, the highest since October 21 when 717 deaths were reported. Of these, 481 deaths were reported in Maharashtra.
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