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Students returning to face-to-face classes should organize into groups to cross as little as possible in the school space, always wear masks, and disinfect their hands when entering and leaving school.
In a guideline published on its website, the General Directorate of Health (DGS) says that each group of students should be assigned a zone of the school and that each classroom should be used by the same group of students, to avoid contamination by Covid-19.
The physical distance (1.5 to two meters) should be kept outside and inside the classroom, with desks arranged as close as possible to walls and windows, preventing students from facing each other. Rooms and other interior spaces used by students should be ventilated, preferably by opening windows and doors. If air conditioning is used, the extraction mode should be chosen and never the air recirculation mode.
The DGS also says that spaces not necessary for teaching, such as buffets / bars, support rooms, student lounges and others, should be closed.
If, for reasons of equity guarantee, it is necessary to provide access to the library or computer room, they should reduce the maximum capacity and have a sign indicating the places that can be occupied to guarantee the rules of physical distance. They must also be disinfected and disinfected after each use, ”he adds.
DGS insists on the importance of disinfecting surfaces to prevent the transmission of Covid-19 in community settings, recalling that the disease-causing SARS-CoV-2 virus “can survive on different surfaces for hours (copper and cardboard) for a few days (plastic and stainless steel) “.
Stresses that additional disinfection cleaning measures in schools should cover laboratories, computer rooms, classrooms, libraries, teacher rooms, cafeterias, sanitary facilities, and isolation areas and that each school’s hygiene plan should define what is cleaned only, when, with what products and who cleans it, it should be known by the professionals involved and published in a visible place.
In order to increase the training of non-teaching staff responsible for cleaning and disinfecting the school building and waste management, “the training of the national group for the Infection Prevention and Control Program and Antimicrobial Resistance should be safeguarded, whenever possible “(PPCIRA), as well as the Armed Forces, within the scope of the disinfection and sensitization actions that are being carried out”, defines the DGS.
If suspicious cases are identified at school, they should be referred to the isolation area that schools should have and the Health 24 line should be contacted.
Back to school in person, which starts on May 18, covers 11 and 12 year old students (only subjects with a national exam) and the 2nd and 3rd year of the Dual Certification Courses for Secondary Education.
The guardianship had already sent guidelines to the schools at the beginning of the month, which, among other measures, indicated that the classes of the different subjects of each class should be concentrated in the morning or in the afternoon to avoid that the classes have free time between lessons.
These guidelines of the General Directorate of School Establishments (DGEstE) do not define a maximum limit in the number of students per class, but provide rules for the design of classrooms, which must be “spacious and airy”, establishing that each secretary is busy for a single student
If the number of students in the class and the size of the classrooms make it impossible to comply with this rule, schools may divide classes and use “teachers with availability in their teaching component” for that purpose.
The DGS also establishes that “if this or another route is not feasible, the teaching load of the subjects taught in person can be reduced by up to 50%, organizing autonomous work moments at other times”.
The latest official data indicates that Portugal registers 1,135 Covid-19 related deaths and 27,581 cases of infection.
The Covid-19 pandemic has already claimed more than 280,000 deaths and infected more than four million people worldwide. More than 1.3 million patients were considered cured by the health authorities.
