Covid enters the classroom, more than 400 schools have already been affected and 75 have been closed

2 ‘reading

Ten days after the bell tolling in the middle of Italy with five other Regions that have just reopened their schools, the cases of positivity in the classes begin to multiply a bit throughout Italy. Thus, there are already more than 400 schools where at least one case of Coronavirus positivity has been registered so far, which in many cases has led to the quarantine of one or more classes, with up to 75 institutions that have been seen so far forced to close for at least a few days in order to sanitize the premises.

The map of affected schools

Between differentiated entrances, dedicated paths, spacing and masks, the students have returned to their desks, but keeping Covid out of the classrooms is impossible and thus the first cases have arisen. So far, 417 have had at least one Covid case with classes in quarantine, 45 registered outbreaks and 75 institutions closed even for a few days. The map of the “affected” schools, in Italy there are 8 thousand institutes for 30 thousand buildings, is contained in a database developed by a young researcher and a university student – Vittorio Nicoletta and Lorenzo Ruffino – which they have collected since the reopening of the school. all the news and orders of the mayors. From this map it can be deduced that the positive cases in 76% of the cases are students, in 13% teachers, the rest are other personnel. At the top of the affected schools are Lombardy (84), Emilia Romagna (60), Tuscany (50) and Lazio (38). And then Piedmont (29) and Veneto (24). In Rome the schools involved are already 19 in Bologna 14 while in Milan there are 13 and in Palermo 10.

Anti-Covid measures and rapid tests

Until now, schools have adopted all possible anti-life safety measures, trying to reduce the inconvenience for students and families. Many institutes have exploited the available spaces, even moving children to other locations. Or, again, they divided the classes in 2 to have a smaller number of students in the classrooms and to respect the required distance. All this while some schools are beginning to test rapid antigenic tests for students and teachers, as happened in Anguillara, a municipality on the outskirts of Rome. These “quick swabs” give an answer in 15 minutes and are used with detection functions. An experiment that will also be replicated in other Lazio institutes. Meanwhile, the government’s plan is moving forward to improve the firepower of traditional nasopharyngeal swabs, the only ones that can safely determine the diagnosis of positivity for Covid. In recent days the threshold of 100,000 tampons has been exceeded, now the goal is to reach at least 200,000 by fall. Threshold already reached abroad from London and almost from Paris where 150 thousand tampons a day are exceeded.