It was two weeks ago, but the announcements are going so quickly that we tend to forget them: the government announced that it wanted to test a million students per month in schools. For the Normandie, this represents 50,000 students per month. Operations have started well in Calvados, “mobile screening cells” travel to high schools to administer tests to students, subject to parental consent, and to staff who are volunteers.
The cell intervenes beyond 3 positive cases
Mobile cells intervene “as soon as more than three positive cases are identified in an establishment, and the instruction is that we intervene within 48 hours”, explains Sylvie Delamillieure, the national education doctor who organizes these screening teams, the number of which varies according to needs. Since early January, they have carried out 1,500 tests with students and staff of schools in the department.
As soon as more than three positive cases are identified in an establishment, and the instruction is that we intervene within 48 hours
This Friday, a cell will be present at Experimental college-high school in Hérouville-Saint-Clair, another to Orbec. Thursday, January 28, one of them made a stop at Jules Verne High School in Mondeville. 54 tests were carried out, including only 19 high school students, staff of the establishment completing the contingent of volunteers. This is not much, compared to the more than 750 students at the establishment. No test came back positive.
54 tests for 750 students at the Jules Verne high school in Mondeville
It’s already reassuring for Principal Martine Fily : “As much in the first trimester we had no cases, as in January we still had 17 cascading cases, and in particular at the student boarding school. The 54 places were taken in 24 hours, and I think that I ‘would have about fifty other volunteers if a second day was organized “. These tests are not “that” of antigenic tests. In other words, their reliability is relative, especially for potential cases of asymptomatic forms of the virus.
Of course I would like more students to ask to be tested
“We are also constrained by volunteering”, adds Sylvie Delamillieure, the national education doctor. “It varies a lot depending on the establishment. At the Experimental High School in Hérouville, we have a lot of requests, in Bayeux last week, a high school made nearly 500 requests! We managed to do 148 tests”, she explains: “Of course I would like more students to ask for testing. But it also depends on parental consent, and it’s really an individual decision.”
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