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New Wednesday of New Times by Peter Uj.
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They want to make transparent masks for teachers in France, cut the 14-day quarantine period in half and declare red zones in several counties, the French government announced on Sunday.
Another seven counties were declared by the French government on Sunday as an intensive zone, that is, red, for the spread of the coronavirus, bringing their number to 28.
In more than a quarter of the 100 French counties, the prefects can take restrictive measures. The areas reclassified on Sunday include the main metropolitan agglomerations, Lille in the north, Rouen and Le Havre in the west, Strasbourg in Alsace and the two counties of Dijon and Corsica in the central part of the country. In the red zones there are more than fifty infected per 100,000 inhabitants, which exceeds the alert threshold.
The government has also announced that teachers in kindergarten and lower grades, as well as those who teach the hearing impaired, will receive a transparent mask through which students can read orally and follow the facial expressions of the adults who care for them.
“We will produce more than 100,000 masks by the end of the month. These clear and washable masks will be distributed in large quantities during the fall, ”said Sophie Cluzel, Secretary of State for People with Disabilities, in an interview with Sunday, Le Journal du Dimanche, which will be available to all preschool, elementary and school teachers. with hearing problems.
Since the beginning of school in September, masks are compulsory for teachers and students over 11 years of age in all educational institutions, creating difficulties not only for the hearing impaired but also for younger students to read and write.
Originally designed for deaf and hard of hearing people, the top and bottom of the masks are made of fabric to cover the nose and chin, and the middle is made of clear plastic in the front of the mouth, which Gives the mask wearer a facial expression, unlike surgical or washable disposable textile masks.In addition to teachers, speech therapists and those who work with the elderly or autistic also use people with hearing problems. The price of a mask of this type is 10 euros, twice the price of washable masks.
Health Minister Olivier Véran also announced that the government is considering cutting the quarantine time in half. There is no official quarantine in France, it is not mandatory for those infected, but isolation is only recommended for 14 days. The government is considering reducing this period to at least half, as several studies have shown that vectors transmit the virus in the first five days after the onset of symptoms, after which they are no longer infected, so isolation for seven days may be sufficient for Covid-19 infection. to prevent the spread of Although not all experts agree, the government is expected to decide to shorten the quarantine after a Defense Council meeting on Tuesday, according to government sources.
According to official data from Saturday night, 8,550 new cases of coronavirus were detected in the 24 hours prior to Friday, after 9,575 on Friday. The latter was a record number of daily recorded cases of the coronavirus epidemic, but already in the second half of the week the number of new cases per day exceeded 7,000.
The acceleration in the spread of the virus is exponential, and the strong growth is cause for concern, according to the Health Ministry, which expects the number of critically ill patients in hospitals to begin to increase significantly in the second half of next week. Last week, 1,661 newly infected people were hospitalized, 285 of whom also need a ventilator. Despite the growing trend, the data is still nowhere near the known numbers at the peak of the spring, when there were more than 30,000 in hospitals at any one time, of which more than 7,000 were in intensive care units. The death toll from the Covid-19 infection has risen to about twenty a day since the lifting of epidemiological restrictions, with 12 dead on Saturday, bringing the death toll to 30,698. (MTI)
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