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As the incidence of COVID-19 increases, more and more educational institutions work remotely, thousands of children in isolation, some parents and schools are starving with the problems of preventive tests, which explains that the system child screening is imperfect and inconvenient.
“Based on the latest findings of the lawyers, it seems that we will deal with the emergency. It is just a matter of asking me not to write the name that the government has changed its mind,” says Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė.
The government does not plan to publish the quarantine in Lithuania, but this does not prevent Lithuania from tightening restrictions due to the high morbidity rates of COVID-19 and introducing the mandatory use of masks indoors. The last step must be taken on Wednesday, when the Cabinet of Ministers will decide how the current rules should change.
“The main question is whether the responsibility for non-compliance in an emergency lies with who should have it. Not the service provider, not the vendor, not the institution, not some organizer, but the person who does not meet the requirements. It is not yet clear what restrictions could occur in Lithuania as morbidity increases, but the situation continues to deteriorate, ”continues the Prime Minister.
The Marijampolė “Žiburėlis” multifunctional school center, where 201 children study, is currently silent. There has been no outbreak of the coronavirus since the Sept. 16 lesson.
“The disease began to spread, the numbers increased day by day and by the recommendations of the NVSC, simply by order of the director of administration, the institution switched to distance education,” explains the acting director of the Rūta Marcinkevičienė school.
How the infection spread: It is not clear, because in a class, at best, only half of the students take the test here. The situation is further compounded by the fact that children with disabilities also attend school and cannot be screened for COVID-19 tests.
“When several students are tested in class and others are ill, it is difficult to tell,” said the principal.
Akmenė Gymnasium students were also championed in distance education. The local mayor blames parents for not allowing their children to be tested.
“Some are protesting against the government, what it is going to do here, our right to choose, we will do nothing, there is a lack of knowledge and self-education elsewhere,” explains the mayor of the Akmenė district municipality, Vitalijus Mitrofanovas.
And Justina Petravičienė, representative of the Center for Public Health, reveals the figures: “We currently have 302 active outbreaks of COVID-19 in educational institutions, which means that we have identified at least one case in the last 14 days.”
Anger is not only poured out by parents who do not want to test their children. Some families are simply outraged by the existing evidence. After all, there are currently a couple of systems to do when encountering a child with COVID-19 in the classroom. If your classmates get sick or vaccinated, there are no problems and they do not need to be isolated, but if there is no immunity, you may need to isolate yourself for 10 days or take three tests periodically to return to school.
It is true that this is not always mandatory. Because if COVID-19 is detected by a prophylactic rapid antigen test, isolation and testing are only recommended but not required. These rules, which have changed since September, anger parents and school leaders alike.
“It would be better for us to make it clearer in the documents themselves, and that this would not be a recommendation. Perhaps an imperative could appear somewhere, ”says Dainius Žvirdauskas, president of the Association of School Leaders.
“The administration is a bit chaotic, some procedures are abruptly changed and facilitated, that’s a good sign, but there is still a lot of chaos as classes close, and it is unclear how many reasons there are to close. Although there is no quarantine, many children learn from home. The queues for the tests are long, half a kilometer, you have to wait almost an hour ”, says Kęstutis Mikolajūnas, director of the Parents’ Forum.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Sports emphasizes that the situation is not bad, that only a small part of the children is sick and isolated.
“Currently, there are about 1,000 children with COVID-19, which is certainly not much considering more than 300,000 in general education. The number of isolates is about 7,000 children, which if we recalculate the classes would be about 350 classes if they were all put into classes, when there are 17 thousand classes in Lithuania. So far, we are doing very well here with joint efforts ”, says Aidas Aldakauskas, representative of the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports.
The Ministry of Health does not hide that it constantly receives calls for clarification of the student’s testing system, adding that if necessary, the procedure, testing or isolation recommendations can be corrected, replaced by obligations.
“We will see how it will be next, we will evaluate the situation. There is a beginning and we hope that parents are aware and understand that these recommendations should be followed, but if we see that the recommendation does not work at all, then we will react,” says Ginreta Megelinskienė, epidemiologist of the Ministry of Health.
Since September 1, three educational institutions had to temporarily suspend face-to-face classes and start distance education throughout the school.
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