Should teachers be vaccinated as a priority to protect them against the coronavirus?
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Jacquelyn Martin / AP / SIPA
The incidence in schools is twice as high as the national average, according to Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer.
Faced with such a circulation of the virus, many teachers feel exposed and ask for priority on vaccination.
A good idea ?
“We go to work with a lump in our stomachs with the fear of infecting ourselves, of infecting the students, of infecting our loved ones on returning home.
We start in the front line, and without protection, ”laments Nicolas Glière, professor of French and in charge of communication for the Red Stylus, a collective of education professions.
As it is increasingly recognized that schools are areas of cluster and high viral circulation, should we change the vaccine strategy and include teachers and other education professions among the priority people for vaccines against the virus? coronavirus?
Many countries have started to vaccinate teachers, such as Spain, Italy or Germany, but also thirty of the fifty states in the United States.
In France, the Minister of Education Jean-Michel Blanquer had announced on January 4 that he wanted teachers to be vaccinated "by March at the latest", a wish that had probably been overlooked.
“It shows the government's contempt for us.
He says he thinks above all about the education of children but never does anything to protect schools, ”plague Nicolas Glière.
High traffic schools
Everything seems to indicate that the coronavirus circulates a lot at school.
This week, cases in school communities (students / teachers / education professionals) have doubled, according to the latest report from Public Health France, against "only" 14% increase in the number of cases on average in the country.
This Friday, Jean-Michel Blanquer indicated an incidence at school of 500 per 100,000 people, or about double the national average (266 cases per 100,000 inhabitants) and a higher incidence even in regions in a state of maximum alert.
"We should prioritize differently, according to the professions most exposed to the virus and not just by age", wishes Nicolas Glière.
A statement supported by Olivier, principal education advisor in Paris and member of the Génération.s Education collective (thematic committee of the movement of Benoît Hamon): "Since we are in an area of high circulation of the virus, it would be normal to vaccinate us ”.
Both take the example of the vaccination of caregivers, who are among the priority audiences regardless of their age.
Caregivers on the front line of the vulnerable
Alice Desbiolles, doctor and specialist in public health, qualifies: “Vaccination of caregivers is carried out primarily in the name of the risk of transmission to vulnerable groups.
Caregivers are believed to be responsible for nearly a third of the Covid-19 infections that have occurred in the hospital.
This was also the argument of the Minister of Health Olivier Véran when he asked caregivers to be vaccinated more: not to protect themselves, but to protect their patients.
Alice Desbiolles continues: “The same cannot be said of professors who work in a field, where, to sum up, the risk of severe form is lower with a population overall very little at risk.
"The ComCor study by the Institut Pasteur, published in March 2021, thus counted school teachers and teachers in the" professional categories least at risk "of catching the virus, unlike caregivers, in the most professional categories. at risk.
The High Authority for Health has chosen to target as a priority the most vulnerable groups, by age or by co-morbidity.
"The vaccine doses are still very limited, it seems complicated at present to change this strategy, or to explain to the target public for vaccination - the one likely to have serious forms - that doses are postponed", supports Alice Desbiolles.
France has 1,174,100 staff (including 886,000 teachers) in National Education in 2019-2020.
To reach its goal of ten million people vaccinated in mid-April, France must still vaccinate 4.4 million people in four weeks.
Vaccinating these professions would therefore represent a quarter of the first-time injections to be administered, knowing that the Scientific Council estimated, in an April 2020 opinion, at 17 million the number of people likely to develop serious forms in France.
Thus, while it is true that other countries have started vaccinating teachers, it should be remembered that teachers are priority in the United States only after retirement homes and caregivers or that in Spain they are part of the second wave of the vaccination campaign.
However, other nations - Italy and Portugal - have effectively taken them into account as front-line priorities.
Alice Desbiolles reminds us, obviously any staff of the National Education suffering from comorbidity eligible for vaccination can go to be vaccinated.
Bad communication
Still, this non-decision suffers from the government's communication on the school, sacred as "the French exception" but struggling to have measures.
"The school is fundamental, essential, as Minister Blanquer repeats over and over again, but never when it comes to taking measures to secure it", deplores the School and Forgotten Families collective, which would also find reassuring for parents of students that teachers are vaccinated.
For Olivier, “if there are no vaccines, give us FFP2 masks, make half-groups in schools, CO2 detectors in the classroom, protect where the virus circulates a lot.
There, we have the impression that we are doing daycare to allow parents to work and come what may.
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Our anti-Covid dossier
While the School and Forgotten Families collective suggests: "One wonders why in France there is no debate on childhood vaccination, while the American Academy of Pediatrics calls for speeding up ..." debates continue as the incidence soars.
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