Gujarat reported 1,276 new Covid-19 cases and three deaths in past 24 hours taking the active cases to 5,684 as on Thursday.
Considering the sharp surge in the new cases, the Gujarat government imposed new COVID-19 restrictions with suspension of classroom teaching for schools in eight cities of the State.
A high-level meeting chaired by the Chief Minister Vijay Rupani was convened on Thursday to assess the situation in the State.
Announcing the decision, State education minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama informed that the off-line (in-person) teaching will remain suspended till April 10, 2021 in all primary, secondary, and higher-secondary schools in eight municipal corporation areas namely Ahmedabad, Surat, Rajkot, Vadodara, Bhavnagar, Gandhinagar, Jamnagar and Junagadh. However, the online education and home learning activities will continue in the schools, the Minister informed.
varsity exams
Also, the University examinations for undergraduate and graduate levels, scheduled between March 19 and April 10 will stand suspended and the new dates for the examination will be announced by the Universities.
For the Post-graduate students, the examinations, off-line classes and practical will continue to be conducted offline across the State.
Also, in the remaining cities and villages, voluntary classroom teaching is allowed.
On Wednesday, Ahmedabad and Surat civic authorities had suspended public transport buses till further notice and it also closed parks, gymnasiums, swimming pools to prevent spread of COVID-19.
Case tally
As per the Health Department data released on Thursday, of the total 1236 new cases, 324 were reported in Surat city, followed by 298 in Ahmedabad city, 111 in Vadodara and 98 in Rajkot city.
On the vaccination front, 1.55 lakh people were administered the vaccines on Thursday. This included 1.37 lakh people aged 60 years and above or 45 years and above with co-morbidities.
Till now 24.13 lakh people have received first dose of the Covishield vaccine in the State, while 5.67 lakh people have received the second shot of the vaccine. There were no serious adverse event to the vaccination, the state communique informed.