Hyderabad: 236 at IIT-H campus test positive for Covid

Hyderabad: As many as 236 persons, including students, faculty and staff, tested positive for Covid at the Indian Institute of Technology-Hyderabad (IIT-H) campus as on Tuesday.

As many as 186 students, 50 faculty and staff tested positive. Since the first case was reported on January 6, the number of Covid cases continued to increase on the campus. On Tuesday 13 persons tested positive. However, of the 186 students, only 72 are in isolation, and the rest recovered fully. While 100 of the recovered students were still in camps, 14 left for their homes.

Since about 100 faculty and 100 staffers live in quarters with their families, the staff and faculty who tested positive were isolated at their own residencies. The institute has been making door delivery of all essential requirements at isolation rooms and at the staff quarters.

In the wake of Covid cases spike, the institute has decided to conduct only online classes until January 30. While about 700 students left for their homes after the institute declared that they would conduct online cases, there were still 1,300 students on the campus.

The institute said it had six qualified doctors and nine staff nurses. They have inducted four staff nurses to provide round-the-clock services to positive patients. The institute has also kept ready two ambulances which include one ICU on wheels. However, a good number of faculty, staff, research scholars and students, who were living outside the campus, also tested positive after coming in contact with the campus students when offline cases were conducted.