Schools across the country to remain close for 19 days from today

KATHMANDU, Jan 11: The government on Monday decided to close all the basic and secondary level schools across the country for 19 days beginning Tuesday in view of the rising risk of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

A meeting held at the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology on Monday decided to grant a 19-day holiday in all the basic and secondary level schools, around 35,000 schools altogether. With this, the schools will resume on January 29.

The ministry made it clear that the holiday will be adjusted in the annual calendar of the educational institutions. 

“During the period, all the students belonging to the age group between 12 and 17 years will have to be vaccinated against the coronavirus disease,” reads the statement issued by the ministry on Monday.

Earlier, the COVID-19 Crisis Management Coordination Committee (CCMCC) had recommended the government to close the school till Jan 29 as the country began witnessing a sharp spike in the new cases of COVID-19 cases across the country.

As many as 1,446 people tested positive for the novel coronavirus disease across the country on Monday. 

The new cases were detected from 11, 429  tests including 1,357 from 8,965 RT-PCR and 89 from 2,464 antigen tests. 

With this, the total number of active cases of the disease across the country has reached 7,855. 

While 255 people recovered from the disease, two other people died on Monday, according to the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP).