EPIDEMIC – Since Monday, January 3, the start of the new school year has been under high tension with the Omicron variant, with an increase in contaminations, class closings and non-replaced teachers’ absences. First assessment.
Virginie Fauroux –
The Omicron variant also dictates its law in schools. Barely four days after the start of the school year, the Ministry of National Education counted this Thursday evening 9,202 classes closed due to positive pupils or teachers. This is more than three times higher than the previous figure, dating from December 16, before the Christmas holidays, which was 2,970 closed classes.
Last April, before the schools were closed for several weeks, the number of closed classes rose to more than 11,000 (11,272 classes on April 2). It then came down again (to 5.110 at the end of May).
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Omicron variant: the planet on alert
In addition, the number of positive cases identified among students (over these four days) is skyrocketing: 47,453 confirmed cases. The situation is not much better on the staff side with 5,631 confirmed cases declared, still according to figures from the ministry which adds that to date, 28 school structures are closed (20 schools, 6 colleges and 2 high schools).
Traffic jams in front of pharmacies
As a result, this new school year causes traffic jams in pharmacies, which face an influx of patients and must endure a wave of schoolchildren forced to be massively tested for each positive case detected in a class. The health protocol in schools, effective since Monday, January 3, was announced late Sunday afternoon by Jean-Michel Blanquer who has now decided to submit students to three tests in four days if there is a positive case in the class.
The first test, antigenic, can be carried out in a pharmacy, then two self-tests will be delivered free of charge to parents, so that the pupils are again tested independently on D + 2 and D + 4 after the detection of the positive case. A situation that clogs pharmacies: “Sometimes 40 children arrive at the same time”, Philippe Besset, president of the Federation of Pharmaceutical Unions of France, told AFP.
7% absent teachers
Asked during questions to the government in the Senate, Wednesday, January 5, the Minister of Education recognized that the month of January was likely to be difficult, in particular because of the number of teachers absent from schools. 7% are currently, but the peak “should not normally exceed 15%”, he assured. “Are we helpless when it comes to replacement issues? That’s the main topic”, he continued, stressing that the figures put forward by the scientific council at the end of December “speak of 30%” absent, “by adding the cases of patients and the cases of contact”, what “is not the same subject at all”.
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To take this extremely tense situation into account, “face-to-face / distance teaching conditions will be specified, without imposing two forms of parallel teaching on teachers, but making it possible to ensure the link with absent students”, specified the Ministry of National Education which intends to reactivate all the devices used to ensure pedagogical continuity in each school, college and high school.
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