Barely entered into force, the school health protocol is relaxed by the government

While it has just been implemented, the new school health protocol to deal with the spread of the Omicron variant is amended. The government relaxed it, as we can read in the new version posted on the website of the Ministry of National Education on the evening of January 6. Students will no longer have to repeat the course of the three tests if a new positive case in their class appears in less than seven days. The executive noted that the situation would quickly become untenable given the number of new daily contaminations.

Until now, elementary school students had to carry out a PCR or antigen test for each new positive case declared in the class, then carry out a self-test on D + 2 and D + 4 in order to continue to follow face-to-face lessons. Ditto for high school students aged 12 and over justifying a full vaccination (unvaccinated people must remain isolated for seven days).

For these contact case students, this course will now be valid for the week, even if new positive cases are detected in the class in the days following the first case.

School principals began to receive an email to this effect on Thursday evening. According to these directives, of which France Télévisions is aware, if a student in the class received on presentation of a negative test declares himself positive (for example following a self-test carried out on D + 2 or D + 4), he it will not be necessary to restart a screening cycle for the other students.

This cycle will only restart if the second confirmed case has had contact with the other students after a period of seven days following the identification of the first case.

This text sent to school directors also specifies the procedure to follow if the pupil is a contact case of a confirmed case within his family sphere. A quarantine of seven days from the onset of the case must be respected and an antigen test or PCR must be carried out at the end of this quarantine, unless the student is under 12 years of age or has a complete vaccination schedule. In this case, the student immediately performs an antigen test and PCR then self-tests on D + 2 and D + 4 and continue learning if the results are negative.