Europe 1 9:02 am, September 23, 2021

Students from the departments least affected by Covid-19 will be able to go to school without wearing the mask from October 4.

Good news for those first concerned, for whom the mask can be an anxiety.

However, for scientists, the measure is a health risk with the onset of cooler days.

The children will be able to remove the mask.

From October 4, in the departments where the incidence rate of Covid-19 is less than 50 per 100,000 inhabitants for a period of at least five days in a row, the obligation to wear the mask in primary schools will be lifted.

A measure that only concerns children since adults will have to keep it.

If, on Europe 1, epidemiologist Mircea Sofonea calls on the government to be cautious, pediatrician Catherine Salinier welcomes good news for young students.

Relief for children

For the pediatrician, this decision will reassure the children. "By removing the mask, we show them that the pandemic is receding. All the anxiety they felt vis-à-vis the disease will certainly decrease," she said on Europe 1. This measure will also " to relieve "this young audience. "If the vast majority put up with it very well, some said that they had a headache, that it prevented them from breathing when they ran in the yard or from seeing the facial expressions of their comrades," she explains.

These small inconveniences due to the mask will therefore disappear for some children.

But the measure is not unanimous among scientists.

Epidemiologist Mircea Sofonea believes the government is rushing by announcing this measure for early October.

"We obviously want it in the long term, but it may be a bit early because the start of the school year only took place three weeks ago," he said, before continuing: "The effect back-to-school transmissions at school can arrive late. And then we're having a bad season. "

A lack of equipment in the classrooms

According to the epidemiologist, the Delta variant "may be even more contagious when the cooler days are shorter."

He also notes that not all classrooms are equipped to allow children to remove the mask.

"If there is no purifier, we will be exposed to more transmission between children, who for the most part are not vaccinated", supports the epidemiologist.

He warns: "When we take such measures, they must be accompanied by means of increased surveillance and be able to be reactive if the recovery were to be significant".