Following the spread of the coronavirus epidemic in northern Italy, French children returning from this region must stay at home for 14 days. FCPE co-president Rodrigo Arenas believes on Europe 1, Tuesday, that this measure is ineffective and would like these children to be quarantined and tested.

INTERVIEW

Parents of children returning from Singapore, South Korea and Northern Italy, from coronavirus-affected areas, are requested not to send their children to school, to prevent them from going out of school and to keep at home for 14 days, the time of the coronavirus incubation period. The list of countries concerned so far only included mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao. But for Rodrigo Arenas, co-president of the FCPE (the Federation of parents' councils), invited Tuesday morning from Europe 1, "this preventive measure is not effective". According to him, children returning from these regions should be quarantined and tested, and their parents should have exceptions to be able to stay at home.

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"Parents are very worried, they call us to find out what's going on"

Children are put in solitary confinement because it is too complicated to have a child wear a mask for a whole day. But Rodrigo Arenas believes that more important measures must be taken. "We must test all the children. [...] This is what all the countries of the world do and France is not outside the world! If there is a possible pandemic, we must be serious. And the measures recommended are not effective. The school is on the front line, it is in the heart of the neighborhood, so that means that all the people who will be affected by this child and by this family will be worried, "he said. -He underlines. The authorities have asked the parents of the children concerned to give preference to teleworking when possible.

"The parents are very worried, they are calling us to find out what is going on," he said. "It has been going on for months and the media has been informing about this situation. Parents mainly get information on social networks so all the delusions that there may be are gaining ground," he added. According to him, the best way not to give in to psychosis is to "make sure that we are not carrying the virus". For him, it is therefore essential that "a child or a family returning from these risk areas be tested" as well as "all the children of a school".

Doubts on the balance sheet of French people contaminated by the coronavirus

In France, twelve people have been infected with the coronavirus since the start of the epidemic. One is still hospitalized in Lyon and another, an 81-year-old man, died. The other ten were healed. But Rodrigo Arenas leaves doubt on the balance sheet given by the authorities. "That's what it says," he said. "But that's not what parents think. In France, we are very rooted in conspiracy theory, so the best way not to know is to apply science."

"School medicine is not enough so the State must take charge of this thing: the Ministry of the Interior because it has knowledge of the comings and goings, the Ministry of Health because it is its prerogative, and the National Education which must open all the doors ", he added.