CORONAVIRUS Back to school is approaching. About ten days before the start of the school year, the Minister of Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, gave a lengthy interview with JDD This Sunday 22nd August to evoke the specially selected alert level. This will be level 2 (or yellow level).
Last July, the Ministry of National Education revealed a protocol to start the school year with four levels of preparedness, from green to red, and measures adapted to the health situation linked to Covid.
Level 2 provides for Face-to-face lessons in schools, colleges and secondary schools, the obligatory mask in the interior of the primary school, the limitation of mixing, enhanced ventilation, outdoor and indoor sports activities while respecting the distances of 2 meters in the latter case.
Face to face contact and case
This level, as estimated by Jean-Michel Blanquer in Sunday newspaperIt is “that allows us to have as much of a regular return to school as possible, with students in class, while keeping everyone healthy.”
“This protocol is based on proven health measures – such as barrier gestures, building cleaning, and a ‘test, alert, protect’ strategy – to which vaccination is now added from the age of 12. We did not have this advantage during the previous school year,” adds the minister, who specifies that this level 2 could clearly be the subject of local adaptations, particularly in Guyana and the West Indies.
As at all other levels, a semester closure is expected for the first case of Covid-19. In middle and high schools, contact cases can only stay in class if they have been vaccinated. “We start from the same rule that applies to the rest of the population: a contact person who has been vaccinated does not undergo a period of isolation,” Jean-Michel Blanquer continues to advocate.
At the primary level, children who are not old enough to be vaccinated, the rule remains to close the entire class for seven days in case of contamination.
Finally, for school trips, students will not be required to have a health permit in places where they do not mix with the public (swimming pools or libraries). But as of September 30, 12-year-olds will be required in places that require it. When asked in this regard about the fact that Covid-19 screening tests will become chargeable, Jean-Michel Blanquer confirmed that details will be provided in the coming days.
Vaccination and ventilation
Among the two major changes compared to the start of the 2020 school year, September 2021 will see the launch of a vaccination campaign in middle and high schools, which will start at the beginning of the school year for students over 12 years old. I hope so.
“Depending on the situation, either the mobile teams come for vaccination in the institutions, or we organize the movement of volunteer students, with regard to health services, to the vaccination centers,” he said. About 55% of people aged 12-17 have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine since this summer.
Finally, the second pillar, the carbon dioxide sensors that the minister says he wants to “populate”, but by referring this possibility in partnership with the regions that have a responsibility.” On the other hand, when it comes to air purifiers, which were The minister stalls about it for a long time, he specifies: “The health authorities have always asked us to pass judgment. Nothing replaces open windows. Air purifiers can be particularly useful for some rooms that cannot be adequately ventilated through windows”, explains Jean-Michel Blanquer. .
These purifiers were among the orders of a group of about thirty doctors and teachers, including epidemiologist Dominic Costaliola, who published in the scientist, tribune. They consider it “unreasonable to think of recovery at level 2” everywhere in France, in the current health context.
For his part, the minister said, “I suppose this return, referring to the benefits of vaccination in contrast to the beginning of the 2020 school year.” This text attempts to believe that the school was the Achilles’ heel of crisis management, it was a strong point for France”, the minister still considered. However, the latter is aware that the virus is also spreading in the school’s age groups, but “it is wrong to say that the school environment will be more favorable than others to spread the virus.
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