The second year pre-university (PU) student, who appeared for the English examination earlier this week and whose father had contracted COVID-19, has tested negative for the infectious disease.
At a press conference on Saturday, Primary and Secondary Education Minister S. Suresh Kumar said that the test result for the student came back negative on Saturday afternoon. The student had appeared for the second PU English language examination on June 18 at a centre in south Bengaluru. However, as she has tested negative, the minister said that 23 other students who wrote the examination in the same classroom are not required to remain in home quarantine. “The other students at the examination centre need not worry,” Mr. Kumar said.
Several officials of the department heaved a sigh of relief as there was a lot of criticism that social distancing norms were not followed in many of the examination centres.
On Friday, Health and Family Welfare Department officials had asked 23 students to remain in home quarantine as a precautionary measure.
V. Ravi, virologist at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), too, said that there was no need for other students to remain in quarantine as the daughter, who is the primary contact of the patient, has tested negative. Dr. Ravi pointed out that their research shows that the chances of the infection spreading from an asymptomatic patient to another person is very low. “As the father was asymptomatic, there is no cause for concern,” he said.
