After the festive period during which Omicron swept across Greece, schools open today with changes in health protocols in order to limit the spread of the virus in the school community.
Students will return to desks with three self-tests for the first week for all children, vaccinated and unvaccinated, while students will only be allowed to enter schools with a negative test after being registered on the official edu-pass platform.
After the mess created on Friday but especially on Saturday with the shortage of self-tests, the government has made provisions for all schools in the country to procure self-tests and serve those students who could not get them from pharmacies.
For this reason, schools will be open from 7am to make self tests available to those who have not gotten self tests.
How will schools
Specifically, schools will open at 7am to allow the last students to get self tests. The Secretary General of the Ministry of Education, Alexandros Kopsis, spoke to MEGA.
[P THE SELF-TEST) BY THE PARENTS, IT IS NOT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE TEACHER TO DO IT, THERE IS THE MANAGEMENT AND THE TIME OF AN HOUR, AN HOUR AND A HALF TO DO THIS MANAGEMENT BY THE PARENTS, AS YOU UNDERSTAND," KOPSES SAID.[/P]According to the Ministry of Education's instructions, those school units that do not have self-tests will have to notify the School Committees in order to supply them.
According to reports, one million tests have already arrived in schools, while 12% of students and teachers, or 200,000, appear not to have received their tests.
"The Ministry of Education should suspend the operation of schools for one day, so that there is a supply and not have this thing happen tomorrow, when students who have taken the procedure and others who have not, as well as teachers, will be pushed together," argued the president of OLME, Theodoros Tsouchlos.
In any case, the return of students to the school units is causing a "headache" for a part of the experts as fears are expressed that there will be a significant increase in cases in the coming days, while it is not excluded that many classes will be closed due to the contagiousness of Omicron.
Opening day with... absences
It should be noted, however, that more than 11,000 children and teenagers will not go to school today as they were diagnosed positive for coronavirus over the weekend.
At the same time, a race is underway to have self-tests available in all schools so that families who have not been able to get their hands on the ones they need can get them, which has been met with opposition.
Changes to protocols
As mentioned above, students will return with three self tests for the first week, for all students, while all protective measures and the 50%+1 for classroom suspension in the event of an outbreak remain in place.
The three major changes to schools under the shadow of the Omicron threat are.[THE FREE BI-WEEKLY SELF TESTS WILL NOW BE CARRIED OUT BY BOTH VACCINATED PUPILS AND VACCINATED TEACHERS, AGAIN TWICE A WEEK UP TO 24 HOURS BEFORE SCHOOL ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY.
In the event of an outbreak in the classroom, the whole class will be tested, not just the pupils sitting near the outbreak, as was previously the case. All unvaccinated students will get a free test every day for 5 days. Specifically, they will take two rapid and one self test over five days, in addition to the two fixed self tests per week, so 5 tests in 5 days. Vaccinated students will take a total of 3 self tests for free on those days.
Open to change health protocols
"If it is noticed that we need to make some adjustments overall to the protocol during school, we will be alert, our reflexes are there," said government spokesman Yannis Economou.
"All he decided is instead of the free molecular test to offer just one more self test. And because it is as usual completely 'prepared' and incompetent even for the bare minimum, it did not even bother to ensure the adequacy of these tests," SYRIZA said in a statement.
Source: in.gr
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