Asked about the health protocol applied in schools in the face of the coronavirus, the Minister of National Education Jean-Michel Blanquer replied from a school in Vincennes on Thursday: "We must remain cautious with regard to these issues", he said. It tempered the microphone of Europe 1, while calls to relax this binding protocol for teachers and students are increasing. For the time being, due to these strict rules, only 22% of primary school pupils have been accommodated for a few days a week. And if some people want to lighten them, it's because a study published on Thursday shows that the youngest are not that contagious.
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"Let us remember that a month ago, there were a lot of people telling me that schools should not be reopened," Jean-Michel Blanquer cautiously points out. "Today, we are saying that we have to go faster and further, the protocol should be relaxed, whereas a month ago I was told that an extremely strict protocol was needed. I believe that we must go at the right pace. I hope that the relaxation of the health protocol can happen soon ", but" immediately, it would be too early since it has only been three weeks since we started ".
Relaxation before the end of the school year?
The minister wants all schools to open again before the end of June, while 10% of municipalities in France still refuse this reopening. He will also submit to the Scientific Committee changes to the health protocol as soon as possible, perhaps even before the end of the school year, with the objective that as many children as possible return quickly to school. .
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Jean-Michel Blanquer therefore opens the way to a relaxation of the protocol, based on a study which shows that children are not at all viral bombs: carried out by the French Association of ambulatory pediatrics on 600 patients under 15 years in Île-de-France, it shows that children are two to five times less carriers of the virus than older children. They are believed to be responsible for only one in ten clusters. Clearly, it is rather adults who contaminate children, and not vice versa.