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The Minister of Education reiterated today that vaccination against covid-19 is optional, but also stressed that it is only a “redundant” security measure, reinforcement, similar to controls.
“The difficult decision to close the schools again, in January of this year, was not due in any way to being spaces less safe or less deserving of our trust,” said Tiago Brandão Rodrigues in the Eventual Commission to monitor the application response measures to the covid-19 pandemic.
In his opening speech, the minister recalled last year and the list of measures decided by the Government to guarantee health security in schools, in the midst of a pandemic.
He called these measures “redundant,” adding that mass testing and vaccination of teachers and non-teaching staff are “even more redundant” in the sense that they add levels of security.
During the hearing, the government official was repeatedly asked about the vaccination of professionals and one of the doubts raised by the deputy of the CDS-PP Ana Rita Bessa was what would happen to those who refused the vaccine.
“Vaccination against covid-19 is optional. Being optional, there are no civil, labor or other rights that can be questioned due to non-vaccination, ”the minister stressed.
On the other hand, and despite considering vaccination “absolutely central to achieving group immunity,” Tiago Brandão Rodrigues also said that in the educational context, this measure joins many others that guarantee the safety of schools.
The same argument was used when asked about the testing campaign, under which covid-19 diagnostic tests will be carried out in all schools in mainland Portugal in the first week of reopening, and then repeated in the areas of greatest risk.
On the subject, Congresswoman Cláudia André, from the PSD, wanted to know why the screenings are held in the first week of face-to-face classes, and not before returning, thus avoiding possible infections.
“The question could also be asked exactly the opposite,” replied the minister, saying that if the tests had been carried out in the previous week, it could be argued that “what has been done is no longer for now.”
During the hearing, and looking back to last year, in which education had to continue to function despite the pandemic, the Minister of Education admitted that the Executive “certainly will not have done everything right.”
“But we did a lot, the best that was possible and at a time that was never thought possible before,” he stressed.
Later, and in response to the socialist deputy Porfírio Silva about the “continuity of the spirit of alliance with which the Ministry has faced the pandemic”, the government official also said: “We would have done much worse if it had not been for our natural partners . ”.
