two curves reveal the truth about face-to-face classes and the Covid

Buenos Aires chief of staff Carlos Bianco doubted that the face-to-face classes may return to the Province next week because the cases of coronavirus they haven’t come down low enough. From the Presidency, they maintain the firm position of maintaining this restriction as adjustment variable. In the City, on the other hand, there is no indication that the current scenario will change.

The issue was the subject of a lively national debate which reached the Supreme Court of Justice, whose decision allowed Horacio Rodríguez Larreta to make use of the autonomy that baptizes the district he directs, to continue the lessons in the classrooms beyond what Nación has decided.

Axel Kicillof’s argument for continuing to postpone attendance is that business they fell but disappeared. The question that arises is whether the expectation of what this measure can bring (schools closed) to reduce infections is not excessive. That is, if the focus has been in the right place.

The question arises when the results restrictions imposed by the government have left so far, which opens a margin of analysis: virtual classes, really, what is it that drives the number of cases down?

Bugle compared the Covid contagion curves of May 21 to June 2. It was decided not to take the following days because the load in the system of the last days is not yet consolidated (they keep adding). By comparing what happened in the city and in the province, contrasts.

Recall that the substantial difference in the restrictions between one neighborhood and another are the face-to-face classes. For the rest, with some minor nuances – at least formally – this it cannot be done in Buenos Aires, it’s the same thing you can’t do in Buenos Aires.

Go to the curves: on May 21 there was in the City 908 cases of Covid per million inhabitants (moving average of the last 7 days), while on this same date the Province registered 662 cases per million. Obviously, the difference in population between the districts explains the density of Covid on one side of General Paz and on the other.

Jumping to June 2, the numbers indicate that the number of cases has dropped in the City to 654.2 cases per million inhabitants, while in the province he made up to 606.6 cases per million. What was the decline in the two districts? 21.95% in the City and 8.37% in the Province.

This means that with the educational restrictions, prescribed in the suburbs, the residents of Buenos Aires have succeeded in bringing down the contagion of the coronavirus. almost a third – in proportion and according to its population – of what has been achieved in the City.

This would indicate that the real problem for infections to actually decrease has not so much to do with students attending a university. protocolized pedagogical scope, but rather with the degree of compliance that all measures and restrictions generally have.

If you think about it, there shouldn’t be safer place that the school so that the boys are not infected. Families at the gates of schools can also take care of them. On the other hand, the hours during which the pupils are not in the classrooms are a stranger: Are you careful not to get infected? The results are visible.

In the middle appears the pedagogical question. This is the He him risk of contracting the Covid that teachers have when attending face-to-face classes. The vaccine would do its job. The City announced on Monday that you have finished vaccinating with a dose a all registered teachers and professors.

The Province responded to Bugle that it will no longer communicate data on the number of teachers vaccinated, nor discriminate information on other groups at risk. The last time he did this was 10 days ago, when there was a 50.8 percent vaccinated teachers and non-teachers, out of a total of 450,600 registered.

According to Suteba, the main union in the district, the average number of teachers vaccinated today is 63 percent. Although these data do not discriminate the percentage of those who work in the suburbs – where presence is suspended – from those who work in the interior of the province.

While the vaccine is not synonymous with total immunity, the possibility of suffering from a serious illness decreases dramatically once people are vaccinated. The progress of the educational staff vaccination campaign reassures these workers, who are not officially considered essential.

Advancing immunization with this group could be a luck for the Government to capitalize on the achievements and to plan an educational activity same criteria established for the rest of Argentinian workers, according to an April resolution: those who have at least one dose of vaccine can be summoned again by their employer to perform face-to-face tasks.

Computer graphics and data processing: Hugo Vasiliev

Collaborator: La Plata Correspondent

PS