COVID-19: IIT Kharagpur imposes curbs on movement of people on campus

KOLKATA: Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur imposed movement restrictions within the campus, except for those on emergency services, in a bid to break the chain of COVID-19 spread, registrar Tamal Nath told PTI. Barring maintenance and emergency services, all other physical activities on the academic campus area of the institute, including laboratory works, have been stopped from January 18 to 23.

"As fresh Covid cases are being reported every day on the campus, pushing the total number of affected people since the first week of January, we felt the need to break the chain of transmission immediately not for one or two days but a couple of days. The six-day breather will serve the purpose. "We want to stop students going from one hostel to another, and curb the movement of people on the campus during the period, " Nath said.

Also read | Covid Cases in Assam: Over 50 COVID 19 cases found in IIT Guwahati, restrictions imposed

Nath said so far 200 persons, mostly staff and their family members, have been infected by the contagion on the campus. "We will review the situation on January 23 and decide on our next course of action. If the situation improves, we will go for fewer restrictions," he said.

Also read | IIT Mandi, ICGEB researchers discover potential non-vaccine COVID-19 treatment from Himalayan buransh plant

Recently, about 20 new Covid cases emerged from the IIT Kharagpur campus including eight students and twelve faculty members and non-teaching staff. Previous to that, 60 cases were reported on the IITK campus . Most of those infected individuals were asymptomatic or had mild symptoms. The infected students had gone into isolation at the institution's hostels.

Also read | 'Offline activities suspended': IIT Hyderabad shares facts on covid situation