End of the compulsory mask for primary school pupils in 47 departments

The obligation to wear the mask was lifted, Monday, October 4, for primary school students in 47 French departments. The government has decided to lift this measure in the areas least affected by Covid-19, but the teachers must remain masked.

On September 22, the government spokesperson announced that the obligation would be lifted in the departments “where the incidence rate stabilizes below the threshold of 50 per 100,000 inhabitants”. These departments thus move to level 1 of the protocol, which has 4.

Are affected by the end of the obligation: Aisne, Allier, Ardennes, Aveyron, Calvados, Cantal, Charente-Maritime, Corrèze, Côte-d’Or, Côtes-d ‘Armor, Creuse, Dordogne, Eure, Finistère, Gers, Indre, Indre-et-Loire, Isère, Landes, Loir-et-Cher, Loire, Haute -Loire, Loire-Atlantique, Loiret, Lozère, Maine-et-Loire, Manche, Marne, Haute-Marne, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse, Morbihan, Nièvre, l ‘ Orne, Pas-de-Calais, Haute-Saône, Saône-et-Loire, Sarthe, Seine-Maritime, Deux-Sèvres, Somme, Tarn, Tarn-et-Garonne, Vendée, Vienne, Vosges and Yonne.

On the other hand, for primary school staff in these same departments, “the mask is always worn by adults working with students”, in particular “staff from National Education and local communities, AESH (accompanying students in handicap), “the ministry said Thursday.

“After four weeks of school, my son in first grade was just starting to wear a mask … It’s obviously very good news to put these masks in the closet, but for how long?” Marion, mother of a family in Deux-Sèvres. “If we have to go back in a few weeks, it may be cotton,” she says.

Concerns among unions

“We put the mask in some places, but we had better not put it too far”, advocates for his part Stéphane Crochet, secretary general of SE-Unsa, for whom “there is a vigilance to be had because we all know that the epidemic can leave with worrying variants “.

In middle and high schools, the rules for wearing masks indoors for staff and adolescents remain unchanged.

The Snuipp-FSU, the first primary union, denounced Thursday in a statement “the inconsistency and lack of projection of the management of the health crisis in schools” and advocates “caution”, facing the lifting of the wearing of mask for primary school students in these 47 departments.

The same goes for Catherine Nave-Bekhti, secretary general of Sgen-CFDT, who says she is “more than reserved about certain departments on the list which have a high incidence rate among children”.

“It will be necessary that the usual precautions such as the ventilation of the classes or the supply of protective masks in sufficient number for the teachers are respected”, she adds.

At the same time, on the contamination component, the Snuipp-FSU “asks the ministry to step up saliva tests for the 6 million primary school students who are currently only offered up to 300,000 per week when it would take 20 times more to implement the recommendations of the scientific council “.

Currently a case of Covid-19 in a primary school class leads to a closure. But schools in 10 departments – including 5 in departments without masks for schoolchildren – should experiment at a date not yet fixed, a new health protocol at the school. It will be a question of no longer closing a class from the first positive case and of testing all the students, isolating only the positive cases.

The following are affected by this experiment: Aisne, Ariège, Côte-d’Or, Landes, Manche, Morbihan, Moselle, Rhône, Val-d’Oise and Var. In the event of contamination in middle or high school, only students with unvaccinated contact cases must isolate themselves for one week.

On Thursday, less than 1,700 classes (1,692) were closed because of the Covid-19 epidemic, or 0.32% of classes in the country, the Ministry of National Education announced on Friday.

With AFP