Covid-19: "School is the most complex situation that awaits us this fall", warns Arnaud Fontanet

One week before the start of the school year, the situation in schools continues to be talked about.

While the Minister of National Education Jean-Michel Blanquer announced Sunday that the return to school would be done under a level 2 health protocol, Monday morning, it was the turn of the epidemiologist from the Institut Pasteur Arnaud Fontanet to alert on the risks that schools can represent, faced with the Delta variant.

"The models that have been made at the Institut Pasteur have shown that half of the new infections will occur in children from the fall since it is the unvaccinated population" he explains on France Inter.

Arnaud Fontanet, epidemiologist: "School is the most complex situation that awaits us this fall. According to our models, half of new infections will occur in children since they are unvaccinated. And no one has a recipe. miracle."

# le69Inter pic.twitter.com/y5j2fGYOsb

- France Inter (@franceinter) August 23, 2021

Minors are the least vaccinated age group in France.

This makes sense, since the vaccination was opened to them later.

Their vaccination rate has increased, however, since the announcements on the health pass: those over 12 have until September 30 to be vaccinated against Covid-19, after this date, they will have to present a health pass in the places that are there. 'demand.

More than 6 in 10 young adults aged 18 to 24 are now fully immunized.

There too, they have just overtaken - for the first time - 25-29 year olds and 30-39 year olds.

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- Nicolas Berrod (@nicolasberrod) August 21, 2021

No miracle recipe

The Delta variant of Covid-19, particularly contagious, undermines the protocols so far used in schools according to him: "we cannot apply the same recipes as until now" he states, even if " no one has the miracle recipe for preventing the virus from circulating in schools ”.

Read alsoCovid-19: is the Delta variant really more dangerous for children?

Faced with many factors that remain unknown, he considers it important that there be consultations between the actors concerned with a view to the start of the school year: unions, ministries, teachers, parents of pupils, Public Health France, etc. according to the epidemiologist, stepping up the efforts put in place on aeration and ventilation of the premises, thanks in particular to air purifiers. A measure requested by several experts, while schools have little means to obtain these devices. It is a competence of the local communities, "but the State is in support, one frees the means for that", commented Jean-Michel Blanquer during a trip in Hauts-de-Seine last week, without more. details.

Another solution put forward by Arnaud Fontanet: massive screening. According to him, it should be tried in French schools. Testing primary school students, the least vaccinated populations, twice a week would send positive cases home immediately, without needing to close the school. The goal is the same for most players in the sector: to avoid following the path of French Polynesia, which is closing its schools on Monday in the face of an outbreak of the epidemic.