Launch of the self-test campaign at the Lycée Marseilleveyre in Marseille – C. Delabroy / 20 Minutes
- Collective self-test sessions have been organized every week, since Monday, for the high schools of the Aix-Marseille academy.
- In Marseilleveyre, high school students discover how these self-tests work during a first explanatory meeting.
- The establishment, which welcomes nearly 1,000 high school students including interns, received about fifty positive responses to participate in the campaign.
At the sight of the Covid self-test, Lalie takes her head in her hands then raises it to listen to the reassuring explanations of the school nurse: “The swab is smaller than the classic tests, you just have to push it in three centimeters, we will be there, we will help you ”. Internal student in the football section at Marseilleveyre high school in Marseille, she is one of the first volunteers to participate in the weekly self-test sessions organized within the establishment.
Covid-19 screening tests, she has already done a lot in the context of sporting events. So doing them in high school, Lalie did not hesitate for long, “to avoid contaminating the team, the friends”: “it’s better than making an appointment at the lab”.
About fifty volunteers for the moment
Before carrying out the first test themselves, the high school students will attend an exchange on their operation this Tuesday. Alima Abdellache, one of the two nurses from the school, gives her own, supporting demonstration (spoiler: her test, after five drops of developer and 15 minutes of exposure will be negative). The day before, she received about twenty boxes for the establishment, which has nearly 1,000 high school students, enough to practice 500 self-tests. And start the campaign more calmly, a week after the sending of consent forms to parents for underage students. “For the moment, we have had about fifty returns, we did not want to set a deadline,” she says.
“We had polls on Pronote,” says Milo, 16, who also finds the initiative “practical”. “I prefer to stick the stick in my face, and the fact that it’s regular, every week, reassures me for my grandparents. I have a sick grandfather, ”he says. Julia, in second, is there too, even if she thought at the beginning “that it was a salivary thing”. “My mother is a teacher, she also had self-tests,” she continues. I think it will come from parents especially, if they are informed of the campaign ”.
“It will be without me”
In a hurry, Viola and Jane, students in final year, leave the Marseilleveyre high school to enjoy an intercourse. For the moment, there is no question for them to participate in the campaign. “We received a letter on Pronote, yes, one in a hundred”, replies one, for whom “it is not the priority”: “It’s good if everyone does it, if we are one. or two, it doesn’t matter ”. “It will be without me, I won’t get tested every week!” », Cut his friend.
Principal of the Lycée Marseilleveyre, Claire Gérardin-Moriconi undoubtedly knows that she will not convince all her students, but she refutes the term “fiasco”. “We stimulate, and if the students appropriate this tool, we also stimulate a dynamic in the families,” she explains. By teaching them to use these self-tests, which can also be found in pharmacies, we support our students towards more autonomy. At this time of year, when summer is looming, it is also a tool for them to spend serene evenings. The argument will perhaps touch the most recalcitrant. Not to mention that the self-tests will be carried out during school time.