The situation is critical across Italy. The omikron variant now causes about 200,000 new infections per day. As a result, a number of municipalities in the southern regions of Sicily and Calabria have gone into lockdown and in Novara, in the far north, the mayor has decided to close the schools for the time being. A school principal in Rome writes to the newspaper La Republica that he has infected children in 39 of the 56 classes at his school.
In addition to the school principals, regional administrators also call on the government to let children follow lessons at home. In Naples and the surrounding area, schools will remain closed until the end of January and in Sicily children will not go back to school until Wednesday, but the government in Rome is not relentless. “We will just open,” said Education Minister Patrizio Bianchi. “The infections have increased when the schools were closed.”
The protocol is that in primary schools with two infections, a class must be quarantined for ten days and in secondary schools only the unvaccinated students. In the event of one infection, everyone continues to go to school. “The rules entail a lot of bureaucracy, the administration is overrun,” says teacher Ines Angelillo. “While it is tough for us, I am in favor of distance education for, at the very least, the next two weeks.”
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