The figures are dizzy as the children did not return to school until Monday. Since the start of the week, the Ministry of National Education has identified 25,000 positive cases in students, 4,000 in adults. In total, 75,000 students and 3,000 adults (staff from all sides) are isolated. In addition, no less than 10,800 classes are closed due to positive students or teachers.
The new health protocol now requires, as soon as a student positive for Covid-19 is detected, that all his comrades do an antigen test or PCR, before a self-test on D + 2 and then on D + 4. A situation which lengthens considerably queues in laboratories or pharmacies. “When you have an entire class to test in a very short time, it is materially impossible,” said the president of the FSPF, the main union of pharmacists.
Screening in schools to avoid congestion?
With the new protocol unveiled Sunday by the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, for “contact cases”, “the network was able to keep pace” by limiting itself to adults, assures Mr. Besset, “upset” by the decision “Surprise” to also include children.
Especially since pharmacists are not immune to the fifth epidemic wave. “We are starting to have members of our pharmacy teams who fall ill, which we did not have before,” he emphasizes. In this context, “schoolchildren are too much”, he believes, advocating the resumption of collective screening in schools.