The education and health ministries
issued a circular letter late on Monday reimposing the rule for
a whole class to go into distance learning if there is a case of
COVID-19 among pupils or staff.
The rule had been relaxed so that distance leaning only kicked
in when there were three cases in a class.
But the ministries have tightened things up again following a
recent upswing in contagion.
The circular letter said the incidence of cases among
children/young people of school age had risen to 125 cases for
every 1000,000 inhabitants, well above the threshold of 50 under
which is considered possible to effectively trace and track
cases.
Antonello Giannelli, the head of the national association of
school principals, said that, while teachers and school staff
had managed to meet the challenges laid down by the pandemic,
the same could not be said for the ministries' prevention
departments.
Giannelli said that departments "did not manage to guarantee
speedy testing from the start and in many cases they did not
apply the tracing procedure".
Maddalena Gissi of the CISL trade union told ANSA that the union
had requested a meeting with health ministry representatives,
saying the circular letter had generated alarm among school
staff and would create new problems for schools.
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