45-year-old east Delhi municipality school teacher succumbs to Covid-19

East Delhi municipality spokesperson Arun Kumar said that in Saturday’s case the deceased teacher was a resident of Bhajanpura.

A 45-year-old teacher of a primary school of East Delhi Municipal Corporation succumbed to Covid-19 last Monday (May 11), making it the fourth death of a civic body employee in the city.

A doctors in PPE overalls as they collect swabs samples for Covid-19 testing at LNJP Hospital, during nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus, in New Delhi. (Sonu Mehta/HT PHOTO)

Earlier, two sanitation employees and one teacher had died due to Covid-19, while on duty. East civic body officials said that in the latest case, the 45-year-old teacher was “not on duty” and was in poor health. Some teachers of the civic body have been assigned job of distributing food and ration to the homeless and the underprivileged.

Delhi had witnessed 9,333 cases of the virus till Saturday with 129 deaths, according to the Delhi government.

East Delhi municipality spokesperson Arun Kumar said that in Saturday’s case the deceased teacher was a resident of Bhajanpura.

Kumar further added that though the deceased teacher was not on Covid-19 duty but still the corporation has been taking all precautionary and preventive measures to ensure that the frontline staff is not affected by the virus.

“The teacher who died of Covid-19 was also suffering from a liver ailment. He used to frequently visit hospitals for treatment. He must have got the viral infection from the hospital. On May 10, he was tested Covid-19 positive and was admitted to Lok Nayak hospital where he died on May 11,” Kumar added.

He said that generally teachers are “not considered” frontline workers at municipalities unless they are engaged in special duties, such as ration or food distribution at shelter homes or schools.

He said that sanitation employees, DBC (domestic breeding checkers) workers and teachers engaged in ration and food distribution duty are frontline workers.

“In this case, the deceased teacher was not engaged in any such duty because of his poor health. He was not on-duty. Though, he was Covid-19 positive when he died, he does not qualify for Delhi government’s Rs 1 crore ex-gratia scheme,” Kumar said.

An official of north-east district administration said that since the teacher was not on duty so the threat of other staff members getting Covid-19 infection was little. The official said that contact tracing was underway and the family of the deceased teacher was under home quarantine and the area had been sanitised, he said.

Earlier on May 4, a 45-year-old teacher of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation had also died of Covid-19. She was on ration distribution duty in her designated school in Jahangirpuri area. Her husband had also died of the virus on May 3.

Other than these, two sanitation workers engaged with the east corporation and South Delhi Municipal Corporation had succumbed to Covid-19 on May 15 and April 25, respectively.