Tens of millions of academics returned to school Tuesday in France, Poland and Russia, with their backpacks filled with exercise books, geometry games and, for many, a mask for them from a resurgent coronavirus pandemic.
Hand-cleaning stations, social distance and staggered play time will be the new norm as European countries seek tactics for young people to return to the classroom safely and their economy to function again.
But they are doing so at a time when infection rates are emerging across the continent and a return to schools and offices, the fall flu season and excess winter mortality can lead to a momentary wave.
In France, Spain and elsewhere, some parent-instructor unions have expressed fears about plans to reopen study rooms as the spread of the virus accelerates.
“It’s smart for them to leave, to get them back to the general routine,” said Stephanie, one of the parents, who dropped off her daughter at high school in Saint-Leu-d’Esserent, north of Paris.
When asked if she was involved about the spread of the virus in schools, she said, “No more than the market.You can’t avoid life, you just have to stick to the rules.”
Countries are taking other approaches to minimise contagion in schools.Spain’s 17 regions are to blame for their own back-to-school plans, but will have to comply with national regulations, such as mandatory masks for young people over the age of six.
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In the Center of the Immaculate and San José de la Montaña, a Catholic school in Ronda, southern Spain, one-way offices were installed in the corridors before reopening on September 10, we can take its temperature, we have area in all the classrooms,” explained the school principal, Mother Marta, dressed in a starched white robe and a matching white mask.”We’re doing everything we can.”
The French government has said the crisis deserves not to stop people’s lives, while British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was very important that English schools reopen this week., in the classrooms.
Johnson is under strain to display he can oversee a full-time go back to school after his Conservative government made a hash of how school-leavers would be graded for exams that were canceled the lockdown.
But the unions complained about the chaos caused by the last-minute adjustments and the importance of a “Plan B” in the wake of a wave at the moment.
“You don’t want a crystal ball to see that local restrictions will be a feature of fall and winter,” said Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT Director of Studies Union.
At the height of coronavirus school closings around the world in April, some 1.5 billion young people were affected by school closures, according to UNESCO.
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The threat of coronavirus transmission in schools about what happens on the local network and the protective measures put in place, according to epidemiologists.
Global knowledge of the spread of the coronavirus pandemic shows that young people and young people account for 1 to 2% of COVID-19 cases worldwide.Most infections reported in young people are mild or asymptomatic, with few deaths recorded.
“Schools operate in communities, they don’t work in isolation.So we are in favour of what network transmission looks like in which these schools work,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist at the World Health Organization in Geneva.
In Germany, where schools have reopened since early August, the proportion of coronavirus cases among those under the age of 20 has remained stable.In Sweden, by keeping schools open, the pandemic did not generate higher infection rates among academics compared to neighboring Finland, where schools temporarily closed.
“We need young people to go back to school and get others back to work, but we have to do it safely.At the same time, no country can claim that the pandemic is over,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus..
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