It’s more of a confirmation than a real surprise: Indre-et-Loire is one of the 39 additional departments in which students will have to put on the anti-covid mask to return to school, from Monday 8 November. Government spokesman Gabriel Attal announced on Wednesday that the mask would be compulsory in schools in 61 departments, from the start of the school year. The list of the 39 additional departments was specified on the website of the Ministry of National Education and should be published in the Official Journal on Thursday.
The new departments concerned by this obligation are those in which the incidence rate is permanently above the alert threshold, set at 50 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. The Indre-et-Loire has returned above this cape since October 20.
The departmental secretary of FSU-SNUIPP 37 understands but regrets the end of the parenthesis that opened on October 4, the date on which the students of the Indre-et-Loire schools had the right to remove the mask in class : “it was extremely positive for everyone. For the children, of course, but also for the teachers who could again teach practically under normal conditions, by seeing their pupils and their expressions.“explains Paul Agard.”There, we can see that the indicators are going up. We are not doctors so we will obviously do what the Minister of National Education and the Minister of Health ask. We’ll put on the mask. But what also seems very important to us is to know what really happened during the period when it was withdrawn. Did or not have an impact on the evolution of the Covid epidemic in Indre-et-Loire. It seems important to us that a study be carried out to find out“.