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“It is essential that the learning process is affected as little as possible,” said the prime minister, this Thursday, in the presentation of the deconfinement plan. He recalled that the Government “fought to the end not to close any schools.”.
The Leisure Activities (ATL) for children up to the 1st cycle also reopen their doors on Monday to welcome children in person.
In addition to returning to face-to-face classes, António Costa confirmed that starting Monday, massive tests will be carried out on the school population. “We are going to take advantage of this return to school to launch a massive testing program, which is scheduled and has already been announced, in order to be able to detect, when people return to schools, possible outbreaks of contagion,” he said.
However, the Prime Minister ended up not responding directly to the journalist’s question, who asked him how the Government is going to guarantee that all teachers and non-teachers are examined until their return.
“The extraordinary effort of all the Portuguese during these two months has allowed us to reach the moment in which we are and to talk about the plan for the progressive reopening of Portuguese society”, declared this Thursday the Prime Minister, at the end of a Board of Directors, Ministers The plan of deconfiguration It has been expected for a long time, after the Prime Minister announced on February 26 that this Thursday, March 11, he would present the plan to reopen the country. A year ago, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic.
The resumption of face-to-face school activities, suspended since the end of January, will involve the performance of a rapid antigen test on samples from the upper respiratory tract (exudate from the gold / nasopharynx) to teachers and non-teachers of all levels of education, from kindergarten to secondary education, as well as secondary school students.
According to the “Laboratory screening program for SARS-CoV-2 in day care centers and educational and teaching establishments” published on Monday. After the first test, “a periodic screening strategy will be adopted in municipalities with a cumulative incidence over 14 days of more than 120 / 100,000 inhabitants” by means of rapid antigen tests.
Opening schools was a priority
At the end of January, the Government decided to suspend face-to-face classes on the continent and the students had a teaching break for two weeks. Distance education returned on February 8.
The priority in the reopening of the country has always been the reopening of schools, a cause that even motivated an open letter signed by various sectors of society, entitled “Priority to the school.” “It is natural that this is the first measure that we are going to take, from the lack of definition of the schools,” António Costa said at the end of February, at the last press conference after the meeting of the Council of Ministers. In this sense, the guardianship instructed the school administrations to make the use of masks mandatory for those under the age of ten. Thus, seven million euros were transferred to schools to buy protective equipment.
With the reopening of schools in mind, it was also announced that screening should take place in all schools on the continent, regardless of educational level.
Teachers become part of the priority list in vaccines
Another signal that was given towards the reopening of schools came after teachers and school personnel became part of the priority list in vaccination.
Approximately 200 thousand people will be vaccinated from the end of March, private and social and cooperatives, according to the logistics plan that will be implemented ”, listed the General Directorate of Health.
