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Maharashtra closes all hostels, school and colleges in Palghar as Covid spikes
Thirty students and a tutor at an ashramshala in Nandore tested positive on Tuesday following which the hostel has been sealed.
The district administration in Maharashtra’s Palghar has ordered the indefinite closure of all schools and colleges in the Vasai-Virar civic jurisdiction from Thursday and government and private hostels in the district from March 23 till further notice amid a spike in Covid-19 cases.
District Collector Dr Manik Gursal’s order came after 31 staffers and children of a Nandore ashramshala (government hostel) tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday. On Saturday, 79 people in three ashramshalas in Hiradpada, Dabhosa and Vinwal areas in Jawhar taluka had tested positive for the virus.
The Nandore ashramshala is run by the Integrated Tribal Development Project (ITDP) Dahanu and houses around 193 boys and girls studying in Class 9 to Class 12.
“Thirty students including 24 girls and 6 boys have tested positive. A tutor at the ashramshala also tested positive. We have also sealed the hostel. Nine girls have been kept in an isolation ward of a government hospital while the rest are in quarantine in the hostel itself,” said Dr Abhijit Khandare, Taluka Medical Officer,Palghar.
Meanwhile irate parents of the tribal inmates gheraoed the staff of the Nandore ashramshala and blamed them for the lapses in not controlling the spread of the virus.
Palghar Tehsildar Sunil Shinde pacified the angry parents and assured them that all medical help for the students as well as the teaching staff will be provided following which the gherao was called off.
As of Wednesday, there are a total 46,967 positive cases in Palghar district with 30,959 cases in Vasai-Virar civic area,and 16,008 in Palghar rural areas. The pandemic has claimed 1,207 lives in the district so far. Nine hundred of the deaths were in Vasai-Virar civic area alone and 307 in Palghar rural said an official of the District Information Office (DIO) Palghar.
