Rocio Magnani
07/31/2021 8:45 PM
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 07/31/2021 8:45 PM
After the winter holidays, next week the schools of the City and the province of Buenos Aires will resume the "full presence" in the classrooms as they had announced.
The measure, which ends virtual classes, continues despite the fact that
at least 80 cases of the Delta variant
have already been confirmed
in five jurisdictions.
The arrival of this strain of coronavirus, more contagious and virulent, caused countries such as the United Kingdom or Israel to suffer a resurgence and backtrack in terms of policies to ease restrictions.
In Argentina,
officially there is still no community circulation
, although there are two cases detected in Capital that are under investigation, because "so far the link with an international traveler has not been identified."
If the absence of an epidemiological link is confirmed, they would
constitute the first cases not related to travelers in the country
and this occurs three months after the first case of a Delta variant in a traveler was detected in Argentina.
But infectologists rule out that the Delta already circulates in the community.
Confirmed cases
In total, the Ministry of Health of the Nation managed to confirm through genomic sequencing
80 people infected with Covid-19 with this variant
originally detected in India, whose scientific name is b.1.617.2.
Of these cases, 62 correspond to international travelers, 16 to people related to those travelers and 2 whose origin is still under investigation by the Buenos Aires government.
To these 80 people
are added 12 more who were close contact
of Delta cases that have a diagnosis of Covid-19, although still without sequencing.
In Salta, for example, an athlete who returned from Europe with this variant and breached the protocol
ended up infecting at least eight people
.
The breach of isolation by five travelers in Córdoba has already led to 20 confirmed positives in that province and more than 800 people isolated in a preventive way.
In addition to Salta, Buenos Aires and the Federal Capital,
three cases were also registered in Rosario
.
However, the Minister of Health, Carla Vizzoti, assured in dialogue with Radio 10 that "by no means do we have a predominant circulation" of the Delta variant.
Expert opinion
"The Delta variant spreads very easily", alerted on CNN Radio infectologist Javier Farina, member of the Argentine Society of Infectious Diseases (SADI) and advisor to the national government, and assured that "it is very likely" that at this time Argentina has " community circulation ".
"Due to the number of cases and contacts that are diagnosed with Delta, it
is presumed that it is already here and that there is community transmission,
" he said in the program
País Adolescente
.
In dialogue with
Clarín
, Roberto Teijeiro, infectologist at the Pirovano Hospital and also a member of the SADI, agreed: "
We can already say that there is community circulation
, because there are two cases that have no connection with travel or with travelers."
"We are going to see how it evolves from now on in terms of number of cases," said the specialist and recalled that in the United Kingdom and Israel the appearance of the variant forced to modify measures.
Regarding the return to full presence, Teijeiro pointed out that it was “a decision made knowing that Argentina could have a regrowth due to the Delta variant.
There is nothing that one can define definitively in a pandemic
”.
“We know that
at school age the risk is low
and we have to see the level of transmission with this new variant.
What we do have to worry about is those who are most at risk, so that they
are more protected, if they are not yet
, "he said.
More than seven months after the start of the Covid vaccination campaign, around 55% of the country's population has at least one dose, while more than 15% have two.
Obviously, the immunization plan is staggered by age, level of exposure, and risk factors.
But if the most exposed groups are precisely considered,
37.3% of those over 70 have not yet completed their scheme
and almost half (48.8%) of those over 60 are missing.
"The prevention measures do not change with respect to the original variant,
vaccination is effective against the Delta variable
," Farina recalled.
"The more we take care of ourselves, the more we are going to take care of the rest. August has to be the month of the second doses to have the least possible impact on the Delta variant."
Regarding the risk of becoming infected with this variant even with the vaccine applied, the infectologist assured that "despite the fact that the vaccine works, (with the Delta) it decreases the efficacy of around 10 or 15%".
The return to the presence
This Saturday, the Minister of Education, Nicolás Trotta, ratified the return of full presence and questioned the protocol proposed by the City, in which the entire grade will become a bubble and the social distancing of 1.5 meters should be maintained now only among those "bubble-groups".
"Not only [it is] a norm that the City has voted, but an almost unanimous view of
the need to maintain the distancing
and now much more with the concern of the last 72 hours with the possibility of circulation of the Delta variant in the country "Trotta complained, although he remarked that"
we are not going to go back with the presence
, beyond the fact that it is a decision of each jurisdiction, not of the National State. "
The 100% face-to-face classes will return in a staggered manner in the city of Buenos Aires.
On Wednesday, 4th and 5th year of secondary school and 5th and 6th year of technical secondary school will return to the usual routine.
On Thursday, 1st, 2nd and 3rd of secondary school and 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th of the techniques.
Elementary students will return on August 17 and beginning level students on August 23.
In the province of Buenos Aires, where so far the detection of 22 cases of Delta has been reported, students will return to full presence, but with a distance of 1.5 square meters per student.
That will make each institution
reorganize the classrooms
.
For example, if we were to take a course from a full-day school, let's call it 4th A, where not all students would enter with that distance, the school could divide them into two subgroups.
The first subgroup of 4th A could go in the morning and the 4th subgroup B in the afternoon.
And the following week, they could rotate the shift.
ACE
Look also
Nicolás Trotta: "We are not going to go back with being present"
Outbreak of the Delta variant in Córdoba: a relative of case zero denied having violated isolation