76% Parents Not Willing To Send Children To School Till Covid Cases Dip Down To Zero: Survey

Given the lack of online education in many rural parts of the country and the fatigue of online classes as well as the risk of Covid spread and the possibility of a third wave, LocalCircles conducted its next survey to understand the opinion of parents on sending their children to school.

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New Delhi: Amid fears of a third wave of Covid-19, 76% parents, according to a survey, are not willing to send their children to school till cases in their district go to zero or children get vaccinated.

LocalCircles conducted six surveys since March 2020 on re-opening of schools and regularly escalated them to the Centre and state governments, which have been accepted.

Given the lack of online education in many rural parts of the country and the fatigue of online classes as well as the risk of Covid spread and the possibility of a third wave, LocalCircles conducted its next survey to understand the opinion of parents on sending their children to school.

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The survey, which also sought to know their opinion on vaccinating their children if the vaccine were to become available by September 2021, received more than 19,000 responses from parents located in 293 districts of the country.  

In a related survey by LocalCircles earlier in January, 69% of parents wanted schools to reopen from April 2021 or after. This number has significantly dropped to 20% Indian parents willing to send their children to school if they were to open in July. There is growing evidence that the new strain is more harmful to children.

The same survey suggested that vaccination hesitancy among parents has reduced. While 26% Indian parents approved of the vaccine for their children in January 2021, the number has increased to 65% in June 2021.

65% Indian parents approve of their children receiving the Covid vaccine if it is made available by September; 21% want to wait at least till December.

This comes as the government in its daily briefing announced this week that opening schools will be difficult till major chunk of the population is vaccinated.

With the Covid-19 second wave seeing even children and infants getting infected with the coronavirus, the resumption of schools in such a scenario, according to medical experts, may lead to an increase in the number of cases.

Around 8,000 kids tested positive earlier in May alone in a district in Maharashtra. Recently, Meghalaya reported 5,000 cases of Covid in the age group 0-14. In the first wave, 4% of the infected population were children. This share has increased to about 10%-20% in the second wave.

So far, the mortality rate in children is low.

The Serum Institute of India is planning to start the trials of Novavax on children in July. Bharat Biotech has two vaccines that are being tried on children, Covaxin and BBV154, a one-shot nasal vaccine. ZyCov-D, the Zydus' Covid-19 vaccine has also started trials on children in the age group 12-18 years.

The government is considering to provide legal indemnity to Pfizer and Moderna to roll out their vaccines in India. Pfizer has announced that its vaccine is safe for children above 12 years of age.