The end of the All Saints holidays is approaching. For millions of children, Monday, November 8 will mark the return to school. But it will also rhyme with the return of the mask for many primary school students, while the number of new daily cases of Covid-19 is on the rise in France. “The mask will again be made compulsory for children (…) in 39 departments”, government spokesman Gabriel Attal confirmed Wednesday, November 3. They will be added to the list of 22 departments already exceeding the alert threshold.
In total, 61 departments will therefore be affected by this obligation from Monday, November 8. The official list of these territories should be published Thursday, November 4 in the Official Journal. Based on our calculations, here is the map of the departments which exceed the alert threshold and which should therefore, again, be subject to the obligation to wear a mask for primary school pupils.
In the protocol published in September, the Ministry of National Education detailed the rules concerning the wearing of a mask: if it is never requested in kindergarten and always compulsory in middle and high school, the situation in primary school depends on the circulation of the virus within the department.
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Four levels have been established by the ministry. If your department is at level 1, wearing a mask is not compulsory in primary school. On the other hand, it is for the other three. The criterion set for going down to level 1 is to have an incidence rate of less than 50 cases per 100,000 inhabitants for five consecutive days.
Under these rules, the latest national education protocol dating from October 25 places 22 departments at levels two, three or four. The latter therefore require the wearing of a mask in primary school.
But, since October 10, contaminations have been on the rise in France. The incidence rate is now over 50 in a growing number of departments. As we can see on this gif, they were only 17 above this threshold on October 10, against 61 on October 30. A large majority of the departments of the South-East and Pays de la Loire have thus exceeded the incidence rate of 50 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
Among the 61 departments having exceeded the alert threshold set by the Ministry of National Education to remain at level 1, 40 did not impose the mask on primary school before the holidays. This is the case for example of Maine-et-Loire. The department has now reached an incidence rate of 98, which is almost twice the bar set at 50. It should therefore again impose the wearing of masks for children aged 6 to 12 from Monday, November 8. Other departments, which would exceed this alert threshold by this date, should also see the measure return to primary school.