It was one of the government's flagship arguments for closing schools the day before confinement. Children spread Covid-19 faster. Really ? Like this virus, full of unknowns and twists and turns, several surveys around the world tended to demonstrate the opposite, as the epidemic unfolded.
This week, a French study, conducted by 27 pediatricians in Ile-de-France and published in our pages, drives the point home and innocents the under 15s. "We already knew it but not to that extent, they are, in reality, very small contaminators", exclaims Robert Cohen, vice-president of the French Pediatric Society.
Serological tests, which detect the presence of antibodies in the blood, showed that 10% of the 605 children in the study had had the coronavirus. And 1.8% had a positive PCR test at the time of diagnosis during confinement. Surprise, only 0.6% was contagious. Worse, when a child is infected, nine times out of ten, it is by a sick adult.
This is enough to rehabilitate our youth. And make parents' heads spin, as they expressed on Facebook, in commenting on the article. "What should we finally believe, everything is so contradictory in this story ... One white day, the next black ..." annoys Laurence. "We hear everything and its opposite about this filth of viruses", laments Philippe.
For Robert Cohen, the message is, on the contrary, well communicated to parents. He announces it to us, as soon as the schools have completely reopened, the pediatrician will launch a new study with 605 children, selected at random. "We will test the students as well as the parents, this will allow us to see if the number of contaminations starts to rise again. My hypothesis is that their return to school will change little, ”says the pediatrician from Créteil (Val-de-Marne).
Towards a more flexible health protocol
For now, the urgency, according to him, is to lighten the health protocol "too strict and inhuman". Marking on the ground in the playground, ban on taking a child in his arms to console him ... The pediatrician's study made Jean-Michel Blanquer react.
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While he announced, a few days earlier, that there would be no lightening of the rules before the start of the school year, the Minister of Education finally hinted at an easing of the health protocol. "His answer is correct," comments Robert Cohen. Obviously, you have to keep hygienic rules, everything cannot be as before but you have to test a new, more flexible protocol in the coming days, otherwise I can hardly imagine how the return to September could be peaceful. "
