“We need stability” rather than a “yo-yo effect not easy for everyone”, criticized Thursday, November 4 on franceinfo Guylaine David, general secretary of SNUipp-FSU, the first primary school union, while wearing a mask becomes compulsory again when returning from school holidays, on November 8, for pupils of nursery and elementary schools in 61 French departments, where the incidence rate has risen above the alert threshold of 50 cases of Covid-19 per 100,000 inhabitants. Wearing a mask was compulsory in 21 departments before the All Saints holidays.
“It shows that the epidemic is not behind us”, estimates Guylaine David, who specifies that in schools, wearing a mask for students is one of the only measures to reduce the risk of transmission of the virus, because “we are entering a period [plus froide] where we will no longer be able to ventilate the classrooms as we could before, and we still do not have CO2 sensors or air purifiers. “
franceinfo: How are you going to make children accept this step backwards?
Guylaine David: We will have to adapt once again to the changing protocol, to demonstrate pedagogy to children and parents, since they will have to provide the masks for their children from Monday in these 39 new departments. Some had only taken off the mask a week before the school holidays. It is true that it is a yo-yo effect which is not easy for everyone, and which will most certainly cause insecurity and instability in our classes.
Is this return of the compulsory mask a good thing? Was it necessary?
This shows that the epidemic is not behind us. At the end of September, when the Ministry of Education announced this measure to end the wearing of the compulsory mask, we were quite surprised. We need stability in this incidence rate below 50 before we take such measures. We can see that the rate is changing, and that from one week to another, this can change. There, we enter a period [plus froide] where we will no longer be able to ventilate the classrooms as we could before. We still do not have CO2 sensors or air purifiers in our rooms to prevent the air from being contaminated. So we have no measures other than wearing a mask. We are with an unvaccinated, unprotected population. So we have to protect our students. And then, the contamination in our classes can return to families. We have a population that is waiting for the third dose, another that is not vaccinated and that should not be contaminated. It is therefore necessary to have precautionary measures, the wearing of the mask and the non-stirring of the pupils.
Should these steps be taken, also due to insufficient testing?
Yes, the ministry announced at the end of August a massive campaign with 600,000 tests per week. We are very far from the target with barely 200,000 tests. And a very low acceptance rate. Only half of parents agree to give their children a saliva test. The department really needs to step up a gear. We’ve been asking them for a long time. Students must be tested massively and regularly. And we also need a conviction campaign with parents, explaining to them what the tests are for, to avoid any contamination in schools and to carry out satisfactory tracing.