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The

Spanish Association of Pediatrics (AEP)

has proposed this Tuesday a calendar for the progressive removal of

masks

in classrooms, in stages and by groups from younger to older, with a reinforcement of ventilation protocols and in line with the proposals from regional pediatric societies.

He does not want to exaggerate the consequences that the use of masks has had on children's learning -because it is evident that the damage derived from a covid infection was the first evil to be avoided-, but Quique Bassat, coordinator of the AEP Working Group for the Reopening of Schooling, admits that educators and speech therapists have warned of a certain delay in learning.

Without dramatizing, Bassat affirms "that the use of

masks in classrooms

has been done well " and that "minor children have adapted more quickly and easily than adults."

However, now yes, pediatricians recognize that the time has come for children to remove their masks at school: outside, in the playground, and inside, sitting at their desks.

For it,

A schedule has been

proposed for the progressive removal

of masks in school buildings.

This document has been sent "to the health and educational authorities."

"From the secretary of the AEP the document has been sent this Tuesday morning to the ministries of Health and Education", Bassat details.

Now, what is expected is an "acknowledgment of receipt" and then "the authorities will pick up our suggestions or not, but our duty is to make these recommendations based on scientific evidence," acknowledges the pediatrician.

But what are those recommendations?

The AEP pediatricians propose "the immediate withdrawal of the mandatory use of masks outdoors for all students and the progressive withdrawal of the mandatory use indoors, with a reinforcement of ventilation protocols, in accordance with a chronological order and by age groups.

Calendar to remove masks in classrooms

The calendar begins on Monday, February 28, for the first and second years of Primary.

The following Monday, March 14, the third and fourth grade students would remove their mask in the classrooms.

The fifth and sixth of Primary, on Monday, March 28.

And the ESO students would go to class without a mask on April 25 and the Baccalaureate students from May 9.

"This de-escalation, starting with the lowest courses to the highest, responds to the fact that the AEP has compared the risk of transmission inside the classrooms between the last course that did not have to wear the masks (children of 5 years) and the first that did have to wear them (6-year-old children), and it has been seen that the differences in the transmission of the virus between one group and another was not significant", Bassat points out.

And he adds: "

We know that younger children transmit the virus worse, so it seems reasonable to start with those lower levels."

Why at this time?

Bassat acknowledges that the lesser impact of the omicron variant and the high vaccination coverage of the Spanish population have made it possible to change the management paradigm of the pandemic situation in Spain.

He also affirms that taking these steps in the classroom, a controlled space, is the best setting to remove the masks.

The expert recalls that at this time "it is planned to focus efforts on preventing cases with the greatest clinical impact and

focus energy on protecting the most vulnerable through epidemiological surveillance by a series of sentinel centers

distributed throughout the territory that monitor the situation to detect outbreaks and changes in epidemiological trends and in the behavior of the virus or its eventual new variants".

On the other hand, pediatricians value that at the level of impact on the school environment, the return to face-to-face schooling, uninterrupted since September 2020 in Spain, "has been an example through which it has been verified that, following some basic recommendations, the risk of infection to students and adult staff in schools is minimal."

Quique Bassat, as coordinator of the AEP Working Group for the reopening of schooling, highlights that the beneficial effects of face-to-face schooling "are clear and extremely important for learning, but especially

for the psychosocial and adaptive integration of minors and it is critical to return children to a normalized and undisrupted educational experience

."

According to the expert, "if we want to progress towards an eventual 'normalization' of transmission, we must gradually withdraw prevention measures in the school environment, adapting ourselves to the epidemiological situation of each community, and as long

as close monitoring can be guaranteed .

of the impact of this de-escalation".

Masks in the courtyards

The recent recommendation to withdraw the mandatory nature of masks outdoors throughout the country and the need to maintain a safety distance of 1.5 meters, except in the case of large crowds, is applauded by pediatricians, who consider

"incoherent to follow penalizing children and maintaining the obligation to wear a mask in the yard, when they no longer have to wear them when they go out into the street.



Regarding the use of masks in closed environments, where it has been shown that the risk of transmission is between 15 and 20 times higher than in open spaces,

pediatricians point out the characteristics that make the school environment an ideal monitoring model for the progressive de-escalation of indoor face masks

: In the last two years, the lower infectiousness of children and their lower risk of becoming ill have been confirmed.

"Thanks to continuous monitoring of the risk of transmission in the classrooms of our country, we have been able to generate data that supports the low risk of eliminating masks in children," Bassat stresses.

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