Back to school: what will happen in schools when a coronavirus infection is detected

Silvia Gomez

02/13/2021 6:01 AM

• Clarín.com

• Cities

Updated 02/13/2021 6:01 AM

When there are four days until the return to schools, and after almost a year marked by the coronavirus pandemic, doubts and uncertainty persist about

how institutions should proceed in the face of a positive case

.

The Buenos Aires Government published in the Official Gazette and distributed among the directors of private and public educational establishments, a protocol "for the start of face-to-face classes in 2021".

In principle, it is not expected that schools will close if a positive case appears among teachers, non-teachers or students, although all the members of the bubble where the case was registered will be isolated.

This concept was reinforced by the Minister of Education, Soledad Acuña, and the Head of Government, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, when they said this Thursday that "in no case will there be suspension of classes or closure of schools."

According to the protocol, when a

suspicious

case is detected

during the academic day,

people must be isolated in the same school

.

Somewhere in the establishment there must be an identified physical space, "preferably with a door, window and its own bathroom."

Ideally, that person - teacher or student - remains alone in the place.

In the case of the youngest students, those of the first cycle or garden, they may be accompanied by an adult.

Schools will not close in case of contagion.

Only the affected bubble will be isolated.

Photo Andrés D'Elía

If a student or teacher is suspicious before arriving at school, the procedure will be different: the children's families will have to send

an affidavit

stating that the student has symptoms compatible with the coronavirus and a medical record of this situation.

If you are a teacher or non-teaching staff, you must apply for a license and attach a medical certificate.

While the results of the tests are awaited - which implies that it is not known whether the teacher or the students are positive cases - all must be isolated.

That is,

all that bubble and the others to

 which that teacher is destined.

What will happen when a case is confirmed?

If it is a teacher, all the students who belong to his bubble will be isolated.

It is likely, because it is also allowed by protocol, that a teacher gives classes in two bubbles.

The isolation will encompass the students and teachers of those bubbles.

However, it will not reach the families of all these people.

"Families are in close contact with each other, they do not have to remain isolated,"

the City Ministry of Health

explained to

Clarín

.

Students, students and teachers must isolate themselves

for 10 days in a row

.

If any of these people are symptomatic, they will be counted from the day those symptoms began.

But if the person is asymptomatic, the term will run from the date of the test. 

In the event that a case appears, the entire bubble must be isolated and it will not be able to return to class until ten days later.

Photo Germán García Adrasti

Already in the first days of the return of the teachers to the establishments to prepare the beginning of classes,

positive cases

.

Between the Otto Krause Technical School No. 1, located in the Monserrat neighborhood, and the School No. 12 of the School District 10, in Núñez, ten cases were reported. 

The City, for its part, understands that the best way to identify infected people, including those with the disease without symptoms, is to

test teaching and non-teaching staff

.

As of Thursday, 4,815 people had passed through three exclusive centers for that purpose, 21 of whom were infected.

Another 733 tested positive for Covid 19 antibodies, which means that at some point they had the disease.

The testing center for teachers of La Rural.

Photo Maxi Failla

The protocol released by the City does not refer to

non-teaching personnel

.

How do you proceed in the event of a suspected or confirmed case?

In addition to teachers, administrators and students, the schools work with people who are in charge of maintenance, cleaning and security, among other tasks.

In these cases, proceed as with the rest: it must be identified - from the medical effectors - who have been close contacts of these people, and then isolate them. 

During January and some days in February, thousands of boys and girls attended the colonias and summer schools.

It could have been an opportunity for families who today have doubts to know if there were infections and how the situation was handled.

But it wasn't.

The

 Buenos Aires government decided not to offer data on what happened in the classrooms and in sports activities

.

Despite the fact that this media repeatedly requested the information, it could not know how many infections there were, if there were any, or if they affected more boys and girls or teachers and teachers.

They also did not report on how the bubbles worked or how the protocols were applied.

The Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, the Subsecretariat of Sports and the City Government Headquarters did not give details.

The Buenos Aires government did not want to report if there were infections in the holiday camps it organizes or in the summer school.

Photo: Sports GCBA

The guilds ran into the same situation.

And these days, from the Twitter account of UTE Ctera (@utectera) the teachers were sharing

photos of the state in which they found many schools

after the vacation break: some still under construction, others without water, with an evident lack of cleanliness , no alcohol gel or soap in the dispensers.

Even on Friday, many workers denounced the lack of hygiene elements that guarantee care.

Or the impossibility of reflecting the social distancing that is required in the classrooms.

The teachers denounced the state of the schools

They shared photos on UTE-Ctera's Twitter

#Dangerous Classrooms https://t.co/3EkD4AMOPf

- UTE (@utectera) February 10, 2021

"We learned about positive cases because some people were encouraged to publish on networks. And we also found out by radio corridor. What we did see is that everything was very messy: bubbles that never were, because in the same micro several bubbles rose together. The same in the pools, up to 300 boys and girls from different bubbles, "Ariel Sánchez, Secretary of the Socio-educational Area of ​​UTE-Ctera, told Clarín.

And he added: "We could never know how many enrolled there were, nor how many teachers were hired. Beyond the fact that those hired were paid very badly. They started with two shifts, but since there were very few children, they decided to do full time, collecting bubbles of one day for the other ".

Although the Buenos Aires government trusts that infections in schools should not "move" the epidemiological curve, it remains to be known what the numbers will say in the coming weeks and how much the prevention protocol could be met.

NS

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Back to school: only 10% of teachers signed up to be tested and the City pleads that they go to avoid contagion