Covid: the school health protocol already slightly relaxed

Barely entered into force, the school health protocol has already been amended. Communicated on Sunday evening, and implemented since Monday, certain new measures to deal with the spread of the Omicron variant will no longer be applied.

A new version of this health protocol was posted on the website of the Ministry of National Education on Thursday evening. Students will no longer have to repeat the course of the three tests if a new positive case in their class appears within a period of less than seven days. The executive noted that the situation would quickly become untenable, given the number of new daily contaminations.

Until now, elementary school students had to carry out a PCR or antigen test for each new positive case declared in the class, then carry out a self-test on D + 2 and D + 4 in order to continue to follow face-to-face lessons. Ditto for high school students aged 12 and over justifying a full vaccination (non-vaccinated must remain isolated for seven days). For these contact case students, this course will now be valid for the week, even if new positive cases are detected in the class in the days following the first case.

School principals warned by emails

School principals began to receive an email to this effect on Thursday evening, France Télévisions reported. It also specifies the procedure to be followed if the pupil is a contact case of a confirmed case within his family sphere. A quarantine of seven days from the onset of the case must be observed and an antigen test or PCR must be carried out at the end of this quarantine, unless the student is under 12 years of age or has a complete vaccination schedule. In this case, the student immediately performs an antigen test and PCR then self-tests on D + 2 and D + 4 and continue learning if the results are negative.

The number of classes closed because of the Covid-19 epidemic exploded this week, confirmed Thursday, the Ministry of National Education, to stand at 9,202 – out of 527,000 classes in total in France -, i.e. the highest level since spring 2021. In addition, according to a press release from the Ministry of Education, “to date, there are 28 closed school structures (20 schools, 6 colleges and 2 high schools)”.