Friuli-Venezia Giulia reopens schools after January 31. Veneto too

In Friuli-Venezia Giulia there is the hypothesis of a return to school after January 31st. The regional president Massimiliano Fedriga has in fact “imagined
an ordinance that transfers the return to class of secondary school children as of January 31 ”, according to the Regional Councilor for Education, Alessia Rosolen, during a press conference.

Rosolen then stated that “obviously there are possibilities of intervening between now and January 31, depending on how the epidemiological curve is going to change in the coming weeks.”

The reopening of schools after the end of the month is a solution already adopted by Veneto. The president of the region, Luca Zaia, has in fact signed an order to that effect. “It does not seem prudent,” was his comment, “in a
epidemiological situation in Italy reopen schools. That is what we must do today for the good of the community ”.

Regarding the return to classes, many doubts also arise from the Ligurian governor Giovanni Toti, who stated that “where will they be predictable and
new restrictive measures are necessary, it is useless to reopen secondary schools for a few days, maybe two, and then close ”. This, he added, “would be just a political decision that someone from the government would like to raise their own flag, without any advantage for the students and with many more inconveniences for the families.”

Words that are well linked to those uttered by the Vice President of Brands, Mirco Carloni, who stated that he was “thinking that it is correct to avoid
the reopening of schools in presence from the 7th, with the risk of seeing an increase in infections “. The final decision, however, “will be made today by President Acquaroli,” he concluded. The president of the Calabria region, Nino Spirlì, also shares the same opinion. The governor, who triumphed after the tragic death of Jole Santelli, recalled that “if we had to postpone the regional elections because it is not safe to return to the polls, then we must also re-evaluate the return to schools. Azzolina cannot wait for anything ”, continues Spirlì,“ you come to Calabria, in the individual territories to organize the reopening safely, since it is the only thing that seems to interest them. For me the priority is to protect the health of children, even the psychological one, the education of the sick or worse still of the dead would not be possible anyway. So, if you guarantee that not even a child who goes to school or on the way will be infected then we will reopen otherwise, if there is no maximum security we will continue with dad because children also know how to handle it well, “concluded the regional president.

In Campania, on the other hand, it will be a gradual return. Kindergarten students and the first two elementary school classes will attend again starting January 11, as planned before the close of Christmas. Subsequently, as of January 18, the possibility of returning to attendance for the entire primary school will be evaluated from a general epidemiological point of view and, as of January 25, for lower and upper secondary school.

But it is not only the Regions that have reservations about the reopening of the school as of January 7. According to a survey carried out by ‘Orizzonte Scuola’, for 90% of the professionals (teachers and Ata staff) there would be no conditions to return to the presence. As well as the secretary of the Scientific Technical Committee, Fabio Ciciliano, stated during an interview with InBlu Radio that the objective “is not so much to reopen schools but to try to keep them open. Risk reopening schools and then have to close them again in ten days or two weeks. It is something that the country cannot afford because it would be the proven testimony that the numbers are increasing again ”.

Between August 24 and December 27, 1,783,418 positive cases for Sars-CoV-2 were diagnosed in Italy: of these 203,350 (11%) were school-age (3-18 years). These are the conclusions of the Report Issue “Opening of schools and trend of confirmed cases of Sars-CoV-: the situation in Italy”. In particular, the percentage of cases in children and adolescents increased from September 21 to October 26 (with a peak of 16% in the week of October 12 to 18) and then returned to previous levels. The percentages of school-age cases in relation to the number of non-school-age cases range from 8.6% in Valle d’Aosta to 15.0% in the autonomous province of Bolzano.
“Most school-age cases (40%) – the document continues – occurred in adolescents aged 14 to 18, followed by primary school children aged 6 to 10 (27%), by middle school children aged 11 at 13 years (23%) and by preschool children from 3 to 5 years (10%). In September, the mean age of school-age cases was about 12 years, and then increased slightly in October and returned to the earlier in November and December ”.

Since mid-September (schools reopened between 14 and 24), “there has been a progressive increase in daily cases diagnosed in children and adolescents from 3 to 18 years old, reaching the peak phase from November 3 to 6 (more than 4 thousand cases).
Subsequently, the curve began to gradually descend, with a trend similar to that of the general population ”. Considering the trend of the epidemiological curve by age group, the peak was reached first for adolescents aged 14 to 18 years (almost 2,000 cases) and from 11 to 13 years (more than a thousand cases) from October 27 to 30, followed Primary school children aged 6 to 10 years (more than 1,100 cases) from November 3 to 6, and preschool children aged 3-5 years (about 400 cases) from November 9 to 11.
According to the report, “the maximum daily incidence in the period examined was approximately 43 per 100 thousand inhabitants in the age group 3 to 18 years, clearly lower than that found in the other age groups” (60 per 100 thousand older of 18 years). ). At school age, there is an increase in incidence with increasing age: the highest values ​​are observed for children aged 14-18 years (57/100 thousand) and 11-13 years (53/100 thousand), followed by children from 6 to 10 years old (37/100 thousand) and from 3 to 5 years (24/100 thousand). The highest incidence peaks were found in Valle d’Aosta (around 200/100 thousand) in the age group 14-18 and in Lombardy, Liguria, PA Bolzano (around 100/100 thousand) in the groups of age 14 -18 and 11-13.
The peak of Covid-19 cases among school personnel (around 400) was observed in the first week of November.

Ultimately, for the ISS, schools can be opened: “The percentage of outbreaks in the school environment has always been low and schools do not represent the first three transmission contexts in Italy, which are in order the family / home context , health and work “. “In mid-October – the document emphasizes – a month after the reopening of schools, the percentage of outbreaks in which transmission could have occurred in the school setting was around 3.7% of the total, a value that then gradually decreased ”. Between August 31 and December 27, 2020, “the monitoring system detected 3,173 outbreaks in the school setting, which represents 2% of the total reported outbreaks nationwide.” The hospitalization rate in the school-age population was 0.7% compared to 8.3% for the rest of the population. In the population aged 0 to 3, the hospitalization rate is much higher, equal to 6.2%.