While the students will be back to school this Monday, January 3, Jean-Michel Blanquer unveiled the new health protocol that will apply to the school, including a multiplication of tests.
The start of the school year will take place on Monday January 3. Faced with the threat of the highly contagious Omicron variant, the hypothesis of extending the Christmas holidays has been put forward by various specialists, children being an important vector of transmission. But this is a lead the government has refused to take. While Jean Castex announced a new series of health measures to try to curb the surge in Covid-19 contamination on December 27, he said that the students should return to school on the scheduled date.
A multiplication of tests
This re-entry will however be under close surveillance. In an interview with The Parisian this Sunday, January 2, 2022, Jean-Michel Blanquer unveiled the new health protocol that will apply to the school from this Monday, January 3. Rather than closing classes, the government is now focusing on “contact-tracing”, with a multiplication of tests – up to three in four days – for students in contact cases. “As of this Monday, at primary school, we are strengthening our policy of ‘contact-tracing’. It will involve the multiplication of tests and the participation of families in this system based on accountability”, explains the Minister of National Education, Youth and Sports. Before specifying: “As soon as a positive case appears in a class, all students must do an antigen test or PCR, before returning on presentation of a negative result.”
What cost for parents?
This protocol is already well known to parents. However, this back-to-school season is accompanied by something new, as Jean-Michel Blanquer reveals: “What changes is that now, when the family takes the first test, they will receive two free self-tests at the pharmacy, so that the students can test themselves again at home on D + 2 and D + 4 “. The cost of this new protocol will therefore not fall on the parents. which, according to the minister, “will have to certify in writing that the tests have been carried out and that they are negative”. For the tenant of rue de Grenelle, “these tests several days apart make sure that a student who tested negative on the first day does not become positive later on”. The government’s objective is to “keep the school open in health conditions that are as secure as possible” faced with the acceleration of the circulation of the Omicron variant. However, these new rules do not apply to middle and upper secondary schools where vaccination rates are higher.