The Ministry and the autonomous communities agree on new measures in the classrooms to save face-to-face when returning to schools
The Public Health Commission decided this Friday to recommend that only the students in a classroom in which five or more COVID-19 infections occur in the Infant and Primary stages should be quarantined. «In order to guarantee attendance, quarantine will be recommended for the entire group whenever there are five or more cases of active infection in a classroom or 20% or more of the students in the class are affected in a period equal to or less than seven days. In the event that there are four cases or less than 20%, they would be considered sporadic cases and quarantine would not be recommended “, specified this body, made up of technicians from the Ministry of Health and the communities and meeting urgently three days after the dreaded return to school after the Christmas holidays. The measures will take effect this Monday.
Last Wednesday, the ministries of Health, Education and Universities left open the debate on quarantines. In a first draft, these departments raised the possibility that students would not have to go home even if there were positives in the classrooms, but the dissenting positions of some autonomies then delayed the agreement.
Andalusia and Madrid put on the table that it was the Primary Care physicians or the nurses of each center who would decide on a possible closure of classes due to the appearance of an outbreak.
Minister Darias transferred the final resolution to the Public Health Commission, which was pronounced this Friday, although always on the basis of maintaining presence as much as possible, the main objective of the Government regarding education throughout the pandemic.
«The marked changes are aimed at guaranteeing and promoting attendance as much as possible at all educational levels, reinforcing compliance with prevention measures. This change is adapted to the current pandemic situation, also reflects the important advance in vaccination in all age groups and takes into account that school environments have proven throughout the pandemic to be safe environments in terms of virus transmission », Indicated this Friday Health.
Ministry technicians have made a balance between several factors. On the one hand, the expansion of omicron among minors is being explosive, with the accumulated incidence among minors under 11 years of around 2,300 cases. But on the other, the lower severity of the disease in children, the experience of the past year, in which the classrooms registered very low data on infections and vaccination in this age group, which already reaches 31.5% (although With only the first dose, the second is given eight weeks later). According to the forecasts of the Ministry of Education, 70% of schoolchildren will have received the first puncture in February.
The Public Health decision concerns only Infant and Primary students. Those of Secondary, Vocational Training and Universities are guided by the criteria of the general population. Thus, in the event of a positive test, only the infected, their close contacts (those in the seats closest to them) or classmates who show symptoms compatible with covid-19 are isolated.
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