School under Covid-19, or the thorny epidemiological puzzle. After a three-week break, face-to-face lessons are back on Monday for the little ones (middle school and high school students will not find their way back to school until May 3) in a particularly tense health situation. Although in decline for two weeks, the curve of the number of new daily contaminations still peaks at a very high level, with an average of some 30,000 cases per day. A figure probably itself underestimated in view of the significant decrease in recent weeks in the number of people screened. In the hospital, the services are far from having left their state of great tension, with no less than 30,000 hospitalized patients and almost 6,000 patients in critical care. So a question torments the minds: is it too early to reopen the schools? No, necessarily, for the Minister of National Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, who repeated this Sunday that “The school is not in itself responsible for the epidemic” on the LCI set.
For epidemiologist Antoine Flahault, professor of public health and director of the Institute for Global Health at the University of Geneva, the answer is much less obvious. “An epidemic in a territory is like a large sick body that we heal with a range of preventive and therapeutic interventions. Closing classes is one of them. Today, this body appears to be just on the mend, and we are told that one of the treatments that seemed to work is being removed. It’s obviously risky, he describes. Extending the closure of schools is not an obligation, but other remedies must necessarily be sought to secure the current favorable development. In particular, do everything to ensure that schools do not once again become the centers of the spread of the Covid that they were, unfortunately, for a year in France. “
The contradictions of Blanquer
Among scientists, there is a broad consensus on this point: “Schools are a place of transmission of the virus, especially between students”, summarizes, for example, the Scientific Council, in its opinion of 11 March. “Schools are not the heart of the Covid-19 epidemic reactor, as with the flu, for example, where the virus will begin to circulate between children, then amplify, before reaching the rest of the population,” asks epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet. But they are a mirror of what is happening in society. With viral circulation currently high in the country, the school environment can continue to be an important element in the dissemination, we cannot ignore it. “
On the rue de Grenelle side, Jean-Michel Blanquer has nevertheless continued to minimize any involvement of the school in the epidemic dynamic. “Children who are contaminated, most of the time when we go up the chain of contamination, it is not at all that they got infected at school, but in family”, he said on March 19 on BFM TV.
Words in total contradiction with the results updated two weeks earlier by the Institut Pasteur, in its Comcor study, who pointed out precisely the fact that having a child enrolled in college or high school represented a “Increased risk of infection for adults”, respectively of the order of + 27% and + 29%. In the same logic, the Minister of National Education has only repeated that the “Closing schools is by no means the miracle cure for the epidemic”, as on the LCI set, March 21. Here again, positioning itself in total disharmony with scientific data. In a reference study published on November 16 in Nature, aiming to evaluate in 226 countries the effects of different interventions on the rate of reproduction of the virus, the researchers say that the “Closure of educational facilities” is the second most effective measure, behind “The cancellation of small gatherings” and in front of “Border restrictions”.
Focus on testing
The real effects of these last three weeks without a school on site are for the moment difficult to assess – it is still early and the drop in the number of screenings is blurring the lines – but for Vittoria Colizza, Inserm researcher at the head of ” a laboratory specializing in modifying epidemics, “without a doubt” that the closure of schools plays an important role. “It is very difficult to distinguish precisely between what is strictly speaking the absence of students in class and ancillary things, such as parents who no longer have interactions between them, or teleworking which must fall into place. But the measure as a whole is undoubtedly very effective, she develops. At All Saints’ Day and in February, we had already noticed that the holidays had brought an additional slowdown on the curve. Christmas was more complicated, with travel and family reunions. There, we also see that the incidence rates of young people, 0-9 years old, are falling rapidly and markedly. ”
By confirming the timetable for the reopening of classes at the press conference last Thursday, Prime Minister Jean Castex still seemed to want to show, at least in the speech, a touch of lucidity vis-à-vis the key status of schools : “I fully understand the arguments according to which the improvement of the health situation is not yet sufficient. […] We must also draw all the consequences by accompanying it with strict conditions allowing the resumption of classes, next Monday, in the most protective health framework possible. “
A good thing according to epidemiologist Antoine Flahault, who was sorry to see the government “Close your eyes to reality” classes in viral dynamics. “It is certain that having denied the obvious since the start of the pandemic, nothing has been done to seriously secure the establishments”, he tackles. Half gauges, canteens, ventilation verified by CO2 sensors, tests, vaccination of teachers: these “Essential subjects”, according to the researcher, will they all really be taken head-on by the Minister of National Education to prevent contamination? As hammered out in the last opinion of the Scientific Council, the implementation of massive and regular screening is one of the key elements: according to the very latest analysis by scientists Alain Barrat (CNRS) and Vittoria Colizza, the weekly tests on at least 75 % of students would reduce the number of cases by 50%, a measure more than three times more effective than the quarantine strategy of a class.
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