The proposal of the Spanish Association of Pediatrics to start gradually removing the masks in the classrooms of the schools, from the end of this month, and continue from April with the institutes, advanced this Tuesday by EL PAÍS, divides the epidemiologists. Public health specialists generally agree that children should be a priority group with which to start the de-escalation of prevention measures, given that they are simultaneously a low-risk group against covid and vulnerable to other issues, such as the obstacles that masks and other sanitary measures have posed for their learning and socialization process in the last two years. At the same time, however, most consider it necessary to wait until the cumulative incidence among children, which remains high but is falling rapidly, has fallen much further.
Of the half dozen specialists consulted by this newspaper, Daniel López Acuña, former director of Sanitary Action in Crisis of the World Health Organization (WHO), and Manuel Franco, epidemiologist at the University of Alcalá, are in the furthest positions. . “The proposal is hasty. With a combination of a high incidence of cases in this age group, low vaccination protection and a highly contagious variant such as the omicron, the least indicated at this time is to remove the mask indoors,” says López Acuña. “The proposal seems well thought out to me. The school protocols have worked, but the impact that elements such as the mask are having on the educational process is very high, and gradually returning a certain level of normality to it is very important,” Franco points out.
“What the pediatric association is proposing is not a bad idea,” says Salvador Peiró, an epidemiologist at the Foundation for the Promotion of Health and Biomedical Research of the Valencian Community (Fisabio). “I would wait a bit to start, because there is still a high cumulative incidence, especially in children, but the figures are going down very fast and things will probably be much calmer at the end of the month,” he adds. Peiró is concerned about the gaps in the available information. For example: how many of the serious cases and deaths that are being registered still correspond to the previous variant of the virus, the delta. Or what percentage of the hospitalizations that are taking place, especially in children, are due to covid or are simply people whose disease is detected, after having been admitted for another reason, due to the routine testing that is done with everyone. the patients.
The Spanish Society of Pediatrics proposes to start the removal of masks from classrooms in first and second grades (children from six to eight years old) within two weeks, on Monday, February 28. The cumulative incidence in the group of five to 11 years is about 1,600 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. Two weeks ago it stood at 5,400 cases, that is, it has been reduced by 3,800 points since then. López Acuña considers that, before starting a withdrawal like the one proposed by the pediatricians, the level should drop below 100 cases. Julián Domínguez, from the Spanish Society of Preventive Medicine, Public Health and Health Management, believes, for his part, that it should be, at most, about 150 or 200 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. Domínguez also sees it necessary to wait for the vaccination of the population group from five to 11 years to increase (which does not reach 60% with one dose), which has been delayed by the wave of childhood infections that has occurred since Christmas.
The measurement of cases, warns Joan Caylà, from the Spanish Society of Epidemiology (SEE), “is not being done well, as before, and therefore the real drop is surely less than that detected by these tests.” In an “initial assessment” of the positioning of paediatricians, the SEE is in favor of waiting to remove indoor masks, and applying, when it is done, measures such as good monitoring of cases, ventilation of classrooms and some “ratios adequate” number of students per class.
Top of the list
“Children are the first on the list among the groups to assess whether decisions have to be made,” says Ildefonso Hernández, spokesman for the Spanish Society of Public Health and Health Administration (SESPAS). “And schools are, of course, one of the areas where it is worth trying to advance measures because, as the pediatric association says, schoolchildren are a group with less risk of covid who, on the other hand, have other types of vulnerabilities. , including some related to the use of masks. The professor of Public Health at the Miguel Hernández University believes that the issue should be studied within the health agencies with the participation of experts in education.
A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health has assured this Tuesday that the removal of the masks in the classrooms “at the moment is not being studied in the bodies of the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System”, where the health officials of the Government and the communities meet. autonomous. The spokeswoman adds that what is being studied, although it is still “something immature”, is the abolition of quarantines, not only for schoolchildren, but for the population in general.
You can follow EL PAÍS EDUCACIÓN on Facebook and Twitteror sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
Exclusive content for subscribers
read without limits
#proposal #remove #mask #classrooms #divides #epidemiologists