Kathmandu, April 19: Government has decided to shut down schools in big cities considering the growing risk of Covid-19. The teaching/learning activities in those schools would be run virtually. The meeting of the Council of Ministers held at Baluwatar today took the decision to instruct the schools in big cities run classes adopting alternative learning method until mid-May, shared Spokesperson of the government Parbat Gurung.

The Covid-19 cases were reported mostly from the school children in the urban areas. A total of 3,565 children below five years were reported to have contracted the flu-like infection as of Sunday. Similarly, 10 children under that had succumbed to the infection during this period. Earlier, the Ministry of Health and Population had appealed to the school administration in 14 districts with highest risk of coronavirus infection not to run schools. Morang, Parsa, Bara, Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, Lalitpur, Chitwan, Kaski, Baglung, Rupandehi, Dang, Banke, Surkhet and Kailali had reported highest cases of Covid-19 amongst 77 districts in the country.