A return to school under the sign of Covid-19 on the Ecully campus, a stone's throw from Lyon.
Three weeks after the detection of a first case of coronavirus in a student, the contamination of 251 other students was made public on Tuesday, making the Ecole Centrale de Lyon, which trains future engineers, a large cluster.
An example, too, for the speed with which these hundreds of infections have been diagnosed and the patients placed in quarantine, while the virus is regaining strength in France.
It all started on August 29, two days before the start of the school year, where an evening between second-year students was organized.
The Rhône department has just crossed the alert threshold, with a number of Covid-19 contaminations exceeding 50 per 100,000 inhabitants.
After a few days, a student from the École centrale de Lyon who participated in the festivities realizes that she is showing symptoms of the virus.
"She contacted me, I made the link with the school and in 2 or 3 hours, the administration put in place the first measures, including distance learning", recalls Pauline, the president of the Students' Office. (BDE).
“She gave us the names of 48 other students with whom she was in contact,” adds Frank Debouck, director of the Ecole Centrale de Lyon.
PCR tests made it possible to detect on September 7 that 12 of them were positive for the coronavirus.
The cluster is under development.
"It was starting to attract a lot of students"
“These patients also had contact cases among the students,” continues the director.
Their number rose very quickly: if we calculate 12 x 12, we quickly arrive at more than 140 students.
The tests are on the rise, within this student population, and the patients detected are placed in quarantine day after day.
On September 11, the school decides to suspend face-to-face classes.
“Gradually, other people began to feel the symptoms, it was starting to make a lot of students,” testifies Pauline, negative for the virus, herself tested after having organized events for the start of the school year, with her association.
# InfoCovid19 As a precautionary measure, all @CentraleLyon lessons take place remotely from Friday Sept. 11 1:30 p.m. to Friday Sept. 18, 2020, with possible renewal depending on the evolution of the monitoring set up by the School.
➕https: //t.co/RXNZ9hJqUP
- Centrale Lyon (@CentraleLyon) September 11, 2020
“We strongly urged those who had signs of the virus to take distance learning courses.
As the days went by, we therefore had more and more students left behind, but this was starting to greatly disrupt the dynamics of the lessons, ”also notes Frank Debouck.
Since then, life on campus has been somewhat put on hold: only the occupants of the residences can go there, the number of people together is limited and the students in quarantine benefit from a delivery of packed lunches.
14% of students infected
At the same time, the tracing of potential infected students continues.
A massive campaign of tests is carried out on 513 students and staff members, between September 16 and 17 on campus, in collaboration with the Regional Health Agency, the Hospices Civils de Lyon and the SDMIS (Metropolitan Departmental Service of fire and rescue).
The results, made public on Tuesday by the school, are alarming: with 106 new cases detected, they are now 252 future engineers out of the 1,490 in the school, to have contracted the virus, or 14% of all students.
None present in a serious form, but half of these patients suffered from flu-like symptoms, reports Frank Debouck, who points out that only one staff member has been diagnosed positive and he has contracted the virus off campus.
These mass contaminations certainly played a role in the decision of the ARS of Rhône-Alpes to launch its White Plan this Wednesday in the hospitals of the Lyon metropolitan area in particular, in order to "face a new rise in cases" and to foresee a likely imminent increase in hospitalizations.
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On the Ecully campus, the sickness toll could increase even further since, if the management strongly encouraged these young adults to be diagnosed, not all of them have yet taken the nasopharyngeal swab, as recognized by the Parisian one Master 2 student, who has not yet made herself known to the administration because she claims to have participated in no evening with other students.
"They wanted to get back to life before"
It is during these private events that, as with other sources of contamination in higher education, the virus was able to spread, according to the students contacted, as well as the director.
Almost all the positive cases would have crossed during evenings in apartments, where most of the second and third years live in shared accommodation in Lyon and around Ecully.
The first year students are more accommodated on campus.
“We all live with four or five people from the school, it's not easy to respect barrier gestures.
It didn't surprise me that it went so fast.
In addition, we were coming back from vacation, the virus could have come from there, ”says Jeanne, a third year student.
"It is for some the first year of autonomy vis-à-vis their parents, it is difficult to ask 20-year-olds to distance themselves during parties", judge Frank Debouck for his part.
The president of the BDE confirms: “Centrale works with large groups of students, who have evenings together.
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“These second years were very happy to see each other again, they haven't seen each other since March 11 and wanted to get back to life before.
They have great difficulty in respecting barrier gestures and do not feel concerned ”, proclaims the director, convinced that his students“ know in which evening they did not pay attention ”.
And this, despite the prevention messages that the school and student associations have been hammering out since the start of the school year.
No new cases for eight days
As a precaution, the traditional WEI (Integration Weekend) has also been canceled this year.
A “real shock” for Jeanne.
“Usually, the first 15 days of the start of the school year are extremely lively.
There, we were told that all the demonstrations were canceled, whereas in an engineering school they have a lot of importance ", relates the student, who considers that this" zero tolerance "is a" strong message from the administration ”vis-à-vis the epidemic.
Outside of student gatherings, life should gradually resume its course on the Ecully campus.
"The students want to resume lessons, too," insists the director of the Central School, who assures him: "There has been no new case declared for 8 days".
"All the students having been invited to respect isolation and face-to-face lessons having been suspended, the risk of new contamination (is) eliminated", also advances the ARS.
A resumption of face-to-face classes is therefore looming for September 28, nearly a month after the discovery of case zero.
