what will happen in schools when a coronavirus infection is detected

When there are four days left before returning to school, and after almost a year marked by the coronavirus pandemic, doubts and uncertainties persist about how institutions should proceed when faced with a positive case. The government of Buenos Aires has published in the Official Journal and disseminated among the directors of private and public educational establishments, a protocol “for the start of face-to-face classes in 2021”. In principle, schools are not expected to close if a positive case arises among teachers, non-teachers or students, although all members of the bubble where the case was recorded will be isolated.

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

Depending on the protocol, when a case is detected mistrustful during the academic day, people should be isolated in the same school. Somewhere in the facility there must be an identified physical space, “preferably with a door, window and its own bathroom”. Ideally, this person – teacher or student – remains alone on site. In the case of the youngest students, those in the first cycle or in the garden, they may be accompanied by an adult.

If a student or teacher is suspicious before arriving at school, the procedure will be different: the families of the children will have to send an affidavit declaring that the student has symptoms compatible with the coronavirus and a medical record of this situation. Whether you are a teacher or a non-teacher, you must apply for a license and attach a medical certificate.

While waiting for the results of the tests – which implies that it is not known whether the teacher or the pupils are positive cases – all must be isolated. That is to say, all this bubble and the others to that this teacher is intended.

What will happen when a case is confirmed? If it is a teacher, all the students belonging to his bubble will be isolated. It is likely, because it is also allowed by the protocol, that a teacher will give lessons in two bubbles. The isolation will encompass the students and teachers of these bubbles. However, it will not reach the families of all of these people. “Families are in close contact, they should not remain isolated,” they told Bugle of the City’s Ministry of Health.

Students, students and teachers need to isolate themselves for 10 consecutive days. If any of these people have symptoms, they will be counted from the day those symptoms started. But if the person is asymptomatic, the term runs from the date of the test.

Already in the first days of the return of teachers to institutions to prepare for the start of classes, positive cases. Between Otto Krause Technical School No.1, located in the Monserrat neighborhood, and School No.12, School District 10, in Núñez, ten cases have been reported.

The City, for its part, understands that the best way to identify infected people, including those with the disease without symptoms, is testing teaching and non-teaching staff. On Thursday, 4,815 people had passed through three exclusive centers for this purpose, of which 21 were infected. Another 733 tested positive for Covid 19 antibodies, meaning that at one point they had the disease.

The protocol published by the City does not refer non-teaching staff. How do you proceed in the event of a suspected or confirmed case? In addition to teachers, administrators, and students, schools work with people responsible for maintenance, cleaning, and security, among others. In these cases, proceed as for the rest: it is necessary to identify – with the medical effectors – which were close contacts of these people, then to isolate them.

In January and some days in February, thousands of boys and girls attended settlements and summer schools. This could have been an opportunity for families who today have doubts whether there were infections and how the situation was handled. But it was not.

The The government of Buenos Aires decided not to provide data on what happened in the classrooms and in sports activities. Although these media repeatedly requested this information, they could not know how many infections there were, if there were any, or if they were affecting more boys and girls or teachers and teachers. . They also did not report on the functioning of the bubbles or the application of the protocols. The Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, the Sports Undersecretariat and the municipal administration did not give details.

The guilds encountered the same situation. And these days, from the UTE Ctera Twitter account (@utectera) teachers shared photos of the state in which they found many schools after the holidays: some still there, others without water, with an obvious lack of cleaning, no alcoholic gel or soap in the dispensers. Even Friday, many workers denounced the lack of hygienic elements guaranteeing care. Or the impossibility of reflecting the social distancing that is imposed in the classes.

“We learned of the positive cases because some people were encouraged to post on the networks. And we also discovered it by radio corridor. What we saw was that everything was very complicated: bubbles that never were, because in the same microphone several bubbles rose together. Likewise in the swimming pools, up to 300 boys and girls of different bubbles, ”Ariel Sánchez, secretary of the socio-educational zone of UTE-Ctera, told Clarín.

And he added: “We could never know how many enrolled there were, or how many teachers were hired. Beyond the fact that the hires were very poorly paid. They started with two shifts, but like there were very few children, they decided to do it full time, collecting bubbles from one day to the next ”.

Although the Buenos Aires government is hoping that infections in schools should not “shift” the epidemiological curve, it remains to be seen what the numbers will say in the coming weeks and to what extent the prevention protocol could be adhered to.

NS