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The Minister of Education, Lucía Azzolina, has been repeating for days that school is a safe place and that the data confirm this. On Sunday night, on television, the minister defended the government’s work from criticism of the management of the reopening of schools during the coronavirus emergency.
Coronavirus, Azzolina: “Since August I have been requesting rapid tests. School is not a source of contagion “
According to Azzolina, Figures show that if in Italy 3.5 per cent of outbreaks occur in schools, in France it is 32 per cent: about ten times more.
As reported by the fact-checking site “Pagella Politics” not so: lthe minister mixes data that cannot be compared with each other.
The 3.5% cited by the minister is contained in the most updated weekly monitoring of the Ministry of Health, the “3.5 percent” of the 1,286 new coronavirus outbreaks registered in Italy between 12 and 18 October is linked to the school environment. “
An outbreak is the identification of two or more positive cases linked to each other and 3.5% indicates the percentage of new outbreaks, not the percentage of currently active outbreaks.
And 32% of France? Public health, the government agency, indicates that from May to October, 814 of the 4,365 outbreaks were linked to schools and universities: a percentage equal to 18.7 percent. If we also count the 376 outbreaks under investigation, the percentage increases to 20.3 percent (1,190 out of a total of 5,861). A percentage lower than that indicated by Azzolina, but still higher than the Italian.
The problem, however, as the specialized site points out, is that different data and percentages are being compared.
“Italy and France they use two different definitions of outbreak “, specify the site; “So the Italian data is on new weekly outbreaks, while the French data on the total from May to today; finally, and most important of all, the French statistics exclude people from the family context from the outbreak count, while the Italian Ministry of Health counts them ”.
It is true that between October 12 and 18, 3.5 percent of new outbreaks in Italy occurred in schools, but this percentage increases to about 18 percent if outbreaks are eliminated in households, which account for about 82 percent of all outbreaks..
Also in France, according to the most up-to-date data, just over 18 percent of the outbreaks were attributable to schools and universities (which are not present in Italian accounts).
In addition, regarding the weekly monitoring of the Ministry of Education, it is specified that not all Italian directors and schools responded to the questionnaire, so much so that, as Orizzonte Scuola revealed, last Friday a ministerial note was published by the head of the department Giovanna Boda, the one who reminded the directors to update the monitoring information every week at 8pm every Monday.
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