Covid-19: the school health protocol already relaxed

Faced with the distress of some parents and the proliferation of class closings, the government is reacting. This Thursday, January 6, the Ministry of National Education indicated that 9,202 classes were closed in France, a record since the spring of 2021. A situation linked to the Omicron variant, very contagious, in particular among children. To deal with this, and as spotted by franceinfo, the ministry released a new version of the health protocol on Thursday evening, easing it somewhat, just four days after its implementation.

Thus, from now on, a student will not have to restart his cycle of three tests in four days as he should, if a new positive case is detected in his class within seven days. On Sunday January 2, the Minister of Education had nevertheless decided to strengthen the “contact-tracing” policy. Thus, as soon as a positive case was detected, all the students in the class had to do an antigen test or PCR “before a return on presentation of a negative result”. He added that a family would then receive two free self-tests once a first one has been carried out. So three tests in four days.

Primary school students, as well as those over twelve years of age who had a complete vaccination schedule were subject to it. But faced with the now untenable situation, the government is giving way. According to information from franceinfo, school directors began to receive the new instructions by email this Thursday evening.

In fact, this would mean that if a pupil who had presented a negative test, is then positive on D + 2 or D + 4, the other pupils will not have to start their cycle of tests again. Still according to the information of our colleagues, if a student is case-contact of a person within his family, he will have to respect a quarantine of seven days and take a test at the end (except if he is under 12 years old). or if he is fully vaccinated). In the latter case, he performs the cycle of three tests in four days.