[ad_1]
After the meeting with the President of the country, a member of the Council of Health Experts, the psychologist dr. Mr. Skruibis discussed the proposals submitted for the renewal of contact education in the fall.
In the first place, there is a very clear consensus on the principle that education in contact is a fundamental tool for the well-being of children and young people, because here we must speak not only of educational achievements, but also of children’s psychological health. . And when we talk about that, it is not an easy way for children to not go to school and cause them some kind of inconvenience, they get sad and so on.
We are talking about what the research shows that almost half of the Lithuanian students who participated in the study had psychological difficulties that are already close to the level of the disorder. And if we were there before the pandemic, the state’s ability to offer adequate psychological assistance was very limited, despite the fact that there were 13 percent of children in difficulty. This raises the question of how we will solve these problems now, “he said.
The school must take care of the masks.
According to P. Skruibis, the responsible ministries are preparing various plans to ensure that all children return to school in the fall. However, he said more attention was lacking on non-pharmaceutical measures.
“Regarding non-pharmaceutical measures, it is foreseen that in schools, in certain circumstances, students wear masks, according to their age. Okay, but then the question of what kind of masks, because the difference in the effectiveness of medical and fabric masks is very large. Understandably, the younger the children, the more effort will be put into wearing the masks, but the result is very small because the same masks are worn throughout the week.
At this point, the expert suggested that if you accept that masks are important, and that, according to him, it is important, let the school take care of it.
“For schools to make sure that the incoming student receives a normal medical mask, which is put on and worn only at the beginning of that day, and it really works,” he noted.
Offers to measure carbon dioxide
Another measure named by P. Skruibis is ventilation.
“We understand that we will not make big decisions, it would be difficult to change the ventilation systems of schools. But there are simpler solutions: there are the same CO2 indicators that give a signal when the amount of CO2 in the room exceeds hygiene standards. And this means that the concentrations of both covidium and other viruses could be dangerous. Thus, upon receiving such a signal, it is possible to easily ventilate the premises, “said the expert.
He hinted that there are more complex solutions. For example, the American Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommends the use of ventilators with hepafilters, which do not purify the air itself, but instead clean virus particles.
“It would be an investment to think not only about the fight, but also about other airborne infections. Here I would like to point out that so far investments are being made in the provision of distance education, but I have not yet heard of investments being made. in non-pharmaceutical measures that would increase safety in schools, ”said P. Skruibis.
According to him, the opportunity to do part of the lessons in advance in very different climatic conditions was not taken advantage of in the spring and in case of an unfavorable epidemiological situation.
Those who want to try should not become hostage to those who do not want to
Another topic discussed by experts is student testing.
“The fact that the virus is spreading among students is a fact, but the infection itself is much less dangerous for children than it is for adults. So when we evaluate students for what is expected in certain scenarios, we are not so concerned about the safety of the children, but about the teachers, the parents of the students, the grandparents not getting infected. So this is a ring road, this is how we solve the problems of adults who, for whatever reason, do not get vaccinated, ”said P. Skruibis.
According to him, if the application of the tests seemed unavoidable (and this is the case in some scenarios), he also suggested learning from the spring lessons to ensure that the scope of the tests was also guaranteed.
“Because it is not true that the problems were solely due to parental resistance, part of the problem was that, at least in the larger cities, those test scales weren’t enough to run in schools.
Another thing, if the tests are done and the condition of the contact education depends on the consent of the parents, then we wonder if it is correct, fair, only that a child whose parents give their consent for the test is not yet involved in the education. contact because parents of classmates disagree. (…) It could be possible to reshape the classes in advance and at least in that case some of the children could study in contact form ”, suggested the psychologist.
He added that there is no financing problem here.
“At the moment, it seems that no matter how much effort a school puts into testing, persuading and securing, the funding is the same. Thus, some schools decided that maybe we should not exaggerate and make an effort, distance education also has advantages ”, said P. Skruibis.
The priority is to vaccinate educators
Irena Segalovičienė, senior adviser to the president and head of the Economic and Social Policy Group, said the top priority now is to speed up the vaccination process, as Lithuania has enough vaccines, not to mention quarantine.
Health Minister Arūnas Dulkys noted that 21 thousand. educators have not yet been vaccinated. I. Segalovičienė confirmed that this is a very important issue.
“We have just over 74 percent of workers in the education sector vaccinated. The number is high for the unvaccinated, and a significant proportion appear to be overvaccinated. Today, it is both at the national level and at the municipal level, and the question of training managers and directors of educational institutions, how to persuade, how to work, how to motivate our educational community. Because contact education is definitely a priority.
The president hopes and invites the educational community to get vaccinated as soon as possible and prepare for the fall, ”said the president’s advisor.
Presented a study on the incidence of COVID-19 in children
Speaking about the healthy return of children to schools, LSMU teacher, member of the Council of Health Experts prof. Mindaugas Stankūnas presented the statistics of hospitalization of children for COVID-19 in Lithuania.
“You’ve probably heard in public that children seem to be protected, they don’t get infected, and if they do, they do. [liga] passes without any symptoms. We examine the data from the beginning of the pandemic to the end of April this year and we see that during that time 562 children aged 0-17 were treated in hospital for COVID-19 in Lithuania. During the same period, 92 children were treated in resuscitation and intensive care units, ”he said.
He mentioned in detail that most of the hospitalized patients were children of the youngest age group (0-6 years). They accounted for about 58 percent. of all hospitalized children. The lowest proportion was recorded among primary school children – aged 7 to 11, they accounted for about 12%, and the oldest – aged 12 to 17. about a third of children, 30 percent.
“At the same time, it should be mentioned that the proportion of children among all hospitalized patients is quite small. If we take the entire period analyzed, it is about 2.2 percent. Of all hospitalized patients,” said the professor.
He noted that this percentage varied, the percentage was higher in October, November, but a fixed decrease in January, February, and March. At that time, children made up about 1.5 percent of all hospitalized patients.
The jump in COVID-19 cases
Last day 337 new cases of coronavirus were detected in Lithuania, there were no new deaths from this disease, the Department of Statistics reported this Wednesday. No new deaths were recorded for the sixth consecutive day.
Number of new cases in 14 days 100 thousand. the population increased to 80.4% and the proportion of positive diagnostic tests per day rose to 2.4%.
Currently, up to 12 “red” municipalities are registered in the country, three of which are large cities. According to the latest data from the Statistics Department, according to the highest number of new cases per 100 inhabitants, Palanga continues to lead. Currently, the mentioned indicator is 274, in Klaipėda – 216.7, in Skuodas district – 191.5, in Kretinga district – 174.2, in Rietavas – 153.3, in Kaunas city – 137, 8, in the district of Šilutė – 132.2, in the city of Šiauliai – 128.6.
In the district municipalities of Kalvarija, Klaipėda, Šakiai and Vilkaviškis, this indicator is lower, but they are included in the red zone C2 according to the positive percentage of research.
5,932 molecular tests (PCR) and 6,761 antigen tests were carried out in the country on suspicion of coronavirus.
A total of 281 thousand COVID-19 patients in Lithuania have fallen ill since the beginning of the pandemic. The number of 629 people, of whom are still ill, increased by 2,065 per day.
A total of 4,412 people died from the disease, with 9,024 deaths directly and indirectly related to COVID-19.
[ad_2]
