Should canteens be closed to prevent contamination in the school environment? On the eve of a new press conference by Prime Minister Jean Castex on the health situation of the country, where the effects of the end of year celebrations should finally be known on the epidemic, the scenario of a closure of school canteens returns to the table.
Closed place, where the students have lunch and exchange without masks, school catering is a concern. But why ask the question now? “We alerted on August 24 on the case of canteens”, castigates Sophie Vénétitay, teacher of SES and SG in a high school in Essonne and deputy of SNES-FSU.
1/2 Is the closure of the canteens planned ?! Months that we alert on the subject so as not to come to this. On 08/24 (!), SNESFSU wrote "Rethink the organization of half-board to limit as much as possible the mixing of pupils and adults."https://t.co/PRUYN1i6V9
– Sophie Vénétitay (@SVenetitay) January 12, 2021
“If we are currently seeing a lot of the situation in schools, it is because of the British variant, comments Jonathan Roux, epidemiologist at the École des Hautes Études en Santé Publique in Rennes. We know that it spreads much more (40 to 70%) in all age groups, and that it will spread among young people, even if it is not for all that more dangerous. This means that there are going to be more cases, and that children can infect the elderly more than they do now. “
To curb the spread of British variant and continue to break the curves of the epidemic, closing school canteens, would that be the right – or the “less worst” solution? Response elements.
Is it in the canteen that the transmissions are made?
A study by the Institut Pasteur on December 17 revealed that meals and moments of conviviality play a main role in contamination. “But there are no specific studies on canteens, these are only assumptions”, specifies Jonathan Roux.
Nevertheless, all the risk factors are concentrated there: closed places, gathering of several people without masks, and exchanges conducive to transmission via droplets and aerosols.
Why not have them closed again?
The risk of developing severe forms of the disease remains low in younger people. But they can be carriers and pass it on to the elderly or frail, later. “Children with very few symptoms normally spread the disease less, explains Jonathan Roux. The risk is that it spreads between them, then goes to families, or to grandparents, when they see them in the private setting, without a mask for example. “
“From a health point of view, everything would have to be closed to end the epidemic: limit contacts, interactions, the times when you do not wear the mask … complements the epidemiologist. But from a societal, economic, psychological point of view, this is not tenable. This is why the government wants to close schools as a last resort. “
Prime Minister Jean Castex, during his last press conference on Thursday 7 January, indeed affirmed “Have learned the lessons of the first confinement”, and assured that “The closure of schools should be considered as a last resort”, if the situation was “Very serious”.
Is the health protocol sufficient?
In the latest government health protocol, updated October 29, it is written that “School catering must be privileged” and that’“It can be organized in the usual places”, by applying a distance of one meter between each pupil and trying to avoid as much as possible the mixing of pupils.
“There is something quite paradoxical to say we close the canteens, but we let the students crowd 28 or 30 per class”, castigates Sophie Vénétitay.
“There are very few high schools that have gone into semi-groups, and this is not the case at all for colleges, she continues However, it is by reducing the number of staff present in the establishment at a given time, by moving to half-groups, that the number of staff in a class, in the establishment and in the canteen will be reduced and that we will limit the mixing of students. “
Closing them, wouldn’t it reinforce social inequalities?
Difficult for a student living in the countryside to make the round trip between home and the establishment on his lunch break.
It is also difficult for some parents to replace the canteen with meals at home. “During the first confinement, we saw families who told us that they were in great difficulty to be able to provide meals every day of the week to their children, regrets Sophie Vénétitay. It is sad that we have come to this debate today. “
In his school, the most disadvantaged students, whose parents cannot provide meals every day, can register in the canteen until the evening before, even if they do not have lessons the next day. “We prefer that to them not eating anything, and that does not greatly increase the number of students present, Sophie Vénétitay argues. This is the way we have found to reconcile health and social measures. “
Closing canteens raises territorial and social questions, “Formidable” for this teacher. Without forgetting that removing this “Moment of pause” for students can have consequences on their concentration – and dropping out of school. “It’s a moment, which is not learning, which matters to them”, says the teacher.
Why not differentiate between primary and secondary schools?
Knowing that the youngest children are not very symptomatic and less contaminating, should we not differentiate between school levels? “High school students are considered adults from the point of view of the virus, they will infect as much, be able to take serious forms, like adults, details Jonathan Roux. In college, they are in between. For children under ten, the dynamics of the epidemic are not the same. It would make sense to differentiate the canteens according to age. “
From a purely sanitary and practical point of view, this would be possible. But that would not be socially acceptable. “It’s a bad idea, because we know that the canteens are for a certain number of pupils the only time of the day when they will have a real meal”, comments Sophie Vénétitay, for whom all the canteens school, regardless of the level must remain open.
What would then be the alternatives?
What to do when faced with a situation that seems inextricable? Air more, increase the distances between the children, reduce the mixing, prepare cold and individual picnics… are the solutions put forward by both health professionals and members of the National Education. “But there is never zero risk, shade Jonathan Roux. Unless each child goes home to eat at noon, which is not possible for all. This is where the health vision and the reality of inequalities and logistical problems of different families come face to face. “
In Sophie Vénétitay’s high school, which has 2,700 students, this teacher says that they have been in half-groups since returning from the All Saints holidays. “Group A comes on Monday, B on Tuesday, A comes back on Wednesday and so on, which means fewer people in the canteen, where we have also installed plexiglass windows on the tables to avoid projections”, she explains, certain that solutions less radical than closing the canteens exist.
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