While the Covid-19 epidemic, aggravated by the Delta variant, has led the prefect to partially confine the island of Reunion since July 31, the 220,220 students who live there were the first in France to return to class , this Monday morning.
Located in the southern hemisphere, Reunion Island traditionally returns to class around mid-August at the end of the southern winter vacation.
Risks of contamination
So this Monday morning at 7:55 am (5:55 am in Paris), masks on their faces, satchels on their backs, dozens of children were waiting in front of the gate of an elementary school in the Port (west of Reunion). "This time, we have something more" in the school supplies, laughs a father, showing a packet of masks inserted between two notebooks. His daughter Cindy, 6, who is entering first grade, does not seem particularly concerned. "All my friends are in my class" she rejoices behind her immaculate white mask.
No particular concern for some parents either.
"In any case, we don't have much choice, the children have to go back to school" resigned a mother.
The feeling is more mixed for others.
“It must be said that we are a little afraid.
We are told that children don't risk much, but you never know.
And then they can infect us, the grandparents ”, underlines a grandmother who came to accompany her two grandsons,“ because the parents work ”.
Battle over the date of the start of the school year
This year, the start of the school year was almost delayed. Several National Education unions have asked for it to be postponed for a week. "This will make it possible to organize better in the face of the resurgence of the epidemic", argued these trade unions. The arrival of the Delta variant, identified on the island for the first time at the end of June, quickly caused contamination records, pushing the intensive care unit of the CHU to the brink of saturation. But the unions did not succeed. The date of the start of the school year was maintained and their call to strike was hardly followed, according to the rectorate.
A "strict" procedure has been put in place.
In the event of a report of a case of Covid in a nursery or elementary school, the entire class will be closed and the teaching dispensed at a distance.
In middle and high school, classes will remain open and only students who are positive for the virus and those who have had at-risk contacts will be isolated.
As of Thursday, August 12, the incidence rate was 385 per 100,000 inhabitants.
Since the start of the epidemic on March 11, 2020, 298 patients have died from the disease in Réunion, including 46 since the identification of the first case of Delta variant contamination on June 26, 2021.
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