Teen positive: 36 students, 9 teachers to be tested

After a 15-year-old student of a south Mumbai school who wrote his Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exam recently was tested positive for Covid-19, on Monday, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) education department has submitted a list of 36 students and nine teachers who might have come in his contact, to the health department. All these possible contacts will now be tested for Covid-19

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While the health department has not shared details of the student yet, the boy is reported to have picked up the infection from a ‘close contact’, says the list for Covid-19 patients prepared by the BMC.

The student of a private school, near Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT), wrote all his SSC papers at a BMC school centre in South Mumbai.

On Monday, the BMC education department was alerted by the authorities at the health department asking them to share details of the people who might have come in contact with the student. “We have asked the school to compile the data. Details of students including their names, addresses and contact numbers were shared with the health department yesterday,” said BMC education officer, Mahesh Palkar.

The centre had students from nine schools in the vicinity. “There were a total of 353 students in the centre who were seated in various blocks. This particular student sat in two blocks during all these days depending on the seating arrangement as per the subject combinations that he had opted for. Supervisors said that he was wearing a mask, but we were not informed that the student had any symptoms until we heard from the health department yesterday,” said the principal of the school which was the student’s centre.

On Tuesday, a teacher from the school who was on supervision duty for the SSC exam reported having a sore throat. “We have asked the teacher to get tested for the virus,” said the principal. The student reportedly wrote his history paper on Saturday, after which he got himself tested.

The school has also collated the data of all the non-teaching staff including security guards who were present at the centre, which will be sent to the health department. “Since all the students come out of the exam hall at the same time, we will share details of all those who were present at the centre,” the principal said.

SSC board exam was conducted between March 3 and March 21. The last paper which was scheduled on March 23 has been postponed.