End of the mask for primary school pupils in 47 departments

The masks will fall, from Monday, October 4, for primary school students in 47 French departments. September 22, the government spokesperson had 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”, especially “Staff of national education and local communities, AESH (accompanying persons with disabilities)”, the ministry said on Thursday.

“Vigilance”

“We store the mask in certain places, but we had better not put it too far”, recommends Stéphane Crochet, secretary general of SE-UNSA, for whom “There is a need to be vigilant because we all know that the epidemic can start again 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 in a statement Thursday “The inconsistency and lack of projection of the management of the health crisis in schools” and advocates ” prudence “, facing the lifting of the wearing of masks for primary school students in these 47 departments.

Same observation for Catherine Nave-Bekhti, secretary general of SGEN-CFDT, who says “More than reserved about certain departments on the list which have a high incidence rate in children”. “It will be necessary that the usual precautions such as ventilation of the classrooms or the supply of protective masks in sufficient number for the teachers are respected”, she adds.

New health protocol to come

At the same time, on the contamination shutter, the Snuipp-FSU “Asks the ministry to ramp up saliva tests for the 6 million primary school students, who are currently only offered up to 300,000 per week, while it would take 20 times more to put in place the recommendations of the scientific council “.

Currently, a case of Covid-19 in an elementary school class results in a closure. But schools in ten departments – including five in departments without a mask for schoolchildren – should experiment on a date not yet fixed with a new health protocol: it will be a question of no longer closing a class from the first positive case, and of testing all students, isolating only 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, just under 1,700 classes were closed because of the Covid-19 epidemic, or 0.32% of the country’s classes, the national education ministry announced on Friday.