During saliva tests in a school in Nice. – SYSPEO / SIPA
The number of students infected with the coronavirus increased in one week, from more than 15,000 to more than 21,000, the Ministry of National Education announced on Friday. In detail, 21,183 students were infected out of a total of 12,400,000, a rate of 0.17% (against 0.13% a week ago), the ministry said in a press release. On the personal side, the number of people infected is also up from 1,809 to 2,515, or a rate of 0.22%.
Across the country, 3,256 classes (against 2,018 a week ago) are closed out of 528,400, and 148 school structures (against 80) are closed out of 61,500, including 116 schools, 22 colleges and 10 high schools. For the first time, information on saliva tests carried out in schools is being communicated. Last week, out of 320,285 tests offered, 200,404 tests were performed, and were found to be 0.49% positive.
School closures as a “last resort”
Health Minister Olivier Véran reiterated Thursday that schools would remain open, if necessary with an even stronger health protocol, and would only be closed as a last resort. But faced with the spread of the epidemic, unions are alarmed at an increasingly tense situation in many places.
Among doctors or politicians, voices are raised to demand a closure. The MoDem deputy Jean-Louis Bourlanges, ally of the majority, thus ruled this Friday that we will not “escape a school closure” while the proposal of the president of Ile-de-France Valérie Pécresse d ‘ “Bringing forward” the April holidays finds support at LR and the RN.
Government spokesman Gabriel Attal, for his part, estimated Thursday that Valérie Pécresse’s proposal was “useful”, but that a school closure should remain “a last resort”. The Régions de France association also demanded this Friday that school officials be vaccinated in the same way as teachers from mid or end of April, a deadline mentioned by Emmanuel Macron on Monday.