Upon entering the establishment, the color is announced by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, whose marble bust wears an electric blue and orange mask.
"
It's to educate the students
", smiles the director of the establishment Isabelle Brochard.
After Claude Monet, Louis-le-Grand, Pierre-Gilles de Gennes and Théophile Gautier high school, it is now the turn of Colbert high school, in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, to organize its very first day of screening.
To read also: "We can no longer listen to and treat the students, we must do contact tracing": school nurses on the verge of burnout
Since Monday 23 November, after an announcement from the Regional Health Agency, the Île-de-France Academic Region and the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (APHP), around thirty screening operations for the teaching staff and student volunteers have been set up in Île-de-France, including ten in Paris.
Nationwide deployment is expected in a few weeks.
Young students in health, but also in law and history, welcome new arrivals in order to record them on a tablet that will list their entire journey.
Margaux d'Adhémar
At Colbert high school, the screening circuit begins in the establishment's gymnasium, which has been requisitioned for the occasion.
Young students in health, but also in law and history, welcome new arrivals in order to record them on a tablet that will list their entire journey.
On the right, next to the volleyball net, students, sitting against the wall, await the results of their tests: at midday, 60 of them have already been tested.
On the left, the facility has built "
makeshift boxes
" with ping-pong tables, where third-year medical students, dressed in bright yellow full-body suits, perform the tests.
Students from Colbert high school await the results of their tests.
Margaux d'Adhémar / Le Figaro
Third-year medical students, dressed in bright yellow full suits, perform the tests.
Margaux d'Adhémar / Le Figaro
Alice * and Charlotte *, 20, are doing their second day of "
health service
".
“
We were trained in one day on false noses.
Each week, we are called for a mission.
We regularly change establishment, we receive the place of mobilization by email the day before
, ”explains Charlotte, a medical student at the faculty of Créteil.
“
We are doing this internship as part of a course focused on prevention.
It's strange to test people barely younger than us, but we are doing our duty and we feel useful ... We will tell our children that we have helped to eradicate the Covid
", smiles his comrade who, initially, should have been sent to an nursing home to do prevention, but was finally mobilized in schools.
Alice * and Charlotte *, two 20-year-old medical students mobilized to carry out tests in schools.
Margaux d'Adhémar
A high school history-geography teacher approaches, the two students take charge of him.
“
I hope that this pilot operation will become widespread, but I find that it is already too late: we have already had cases and class closures because a certain number of students were infected.
It's a shame that it takes so long,
”laments the professor.
The screening circuit begins in the establishment's gymnasium, which has been requisitioned for the occasion.
Margaux d'Adhémar / Le Figaro
The circuit that looks like an "escape game" continues, towards the room reserved for school doctors and nurses, who take care of the delivery of results and prevention.
In the corridor, the operations manager, Stéphane Delaunay, checks that the coordination between the gymnasium and the nurses' room is carried out correctly.
He is also the one who organizes screening training for medical students.
“
The training lasts about two hours and is carried out either on scythes or on real noses.
But some students are operational immediately, they already know the technical gesture and are independent,
”he explains.
In the results room, two nurses and a school doctor are waiting for the students.
Doctor Boubeker is not at his first pilot operation: “
last week, I was at the Gustave Ferrié high school, and out of the 56 students and 24 adults tested, there were no positive cases.
In general, we have very few positives: in each establishment, there are on average one or two positive cases, or even zero
”.
The rector of the Académie de Paris, Christophe Kerrero, present during our visit, confides that, when he visited the Lycée Emile Dubois in the company of the director of the ARS Ile-de-France Aurélien Rousseau and the director of Paris Martin Hirsch hospitals, only 2 cases had been reported.
Read also: Covid-19: massive tests planned in three metropolises in France
School nurses say they are overwhelmed, forced to deal "
on a case-by-case basis
": "
Most of our work consists of explaining to parents why their children cannot come to class: I sometimes send some children away on Mondays. and on Tuesdays I find them at school ... You have to rehearse constantly, but always remaining a teacher.
We take a lot of time to explain to parents who do not have access to information, or who do not speak French well.
It's very time-consuming,
”says the school nurse at the establishment, Marie.
"
We are doing a lot of information work for families: depending on their social level, their culture, it's not always easy,
" agrees the director of the establishment.
Read also: Antigenic tests: how doctors, pharmacists and nurses organize themselves
Last step: the isolation room for positive cases.
For now, the office is empty.
In total, at the end of the day, 101 students and adults were tested at Lycée Colbert, and none are positive.
Proof, according to the rector, that school is not a place conducive to the spread of the virus.
"
We are not surprised, schools are taking a lot of precautions: everyone wears a mask, some gauges, such as those of EPS, have been reduced, we put direction of movement and we worked on school catering .
In addition, these processes are a good vector of prevention
”.
According to the rectorate, these screening operations are doomed to multiply in the establishments and to take place until February.
“
We will see the evolution of health policy, but the challenge is to have trained staff and to see the results on the epidemiological level.
For the moment, we see that there are few cases, and we are ready to step up if necessary,
”
the rector of Paris
told
Le Figaro
.
* First names have been changed
