Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

COVID-19 RULES

Denmark eases school Covid-19 rules: close contacts can stay in class

School and daycare children will no longer be immediately sent home if they have come into close contact with a confirmed case of Covid-19.

Published: 6 September 2021 16:29 CEST
Denmark eases school Covid-19 rules: close contacts can stay in class
File photo: Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix

Children will instead be tested for the coronavirus at their schools or nurseries if they are found to have been in close contact with a person who has tested positive for Covid-19. 

The new guidelines were confirmed by the Danish Health Authority on Monday.

“From now on it will only be the infected (children) who will have to go into self-isolation. Children who are close contacts are recommended testing so they can stay at their school or daycare,” the authority wrote. 

That replaces the existing practice of sending close contacts home from schools. 

Unvaccinated children who have not previously recovered from the virus are now asked to take a coronavirus test of any kind as soon as possible and two additional PCR tests, on the fourth and seventh days after the suspected contact.

Children may continue to attend school while awaiting test results, but will be sent home if they develop symptoms or a test result returns positive.

Tests are not recommended for children under the age of three unless they develop symptoms of Covid-19.

“The new guidelines will primarily mean that we will avoid so many children being sent home since they will from now on be able to take a rapid test at school in immediate response to a classmate being infected,” education minister Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil said.

“There is no doubt that sending children home when a single pupil is infected has consequences for schooling and it is very disruptive for families,” she added.

The new guidelines will come into effect “as soon as possible”, the minister said.

READ ALSO: Covid-19 vaccination to be offered at Danish supermarkets

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

HEALTH

Italy’s schools warned to ‘avoid gatherings’ as Covid cases rise

As Italy’s new school year began, masks and hand sanitiser were distributed in schools and staff were asked to prevent gatherings to help stem an increase in Covid infections.

Published: 11 September 2023 12:48 CEST
Italy’s schools warned to ‘avoid gatherings’ as Covid cases rise

Pupils returned to school in many parts of Italy on Monday and authorities said they were distributing masks and hand sanitiser amid a post-summer increase in the number of recorded cases of Covid–19.

“The advice coming from principals, teachers and janitors is to avoid gatherings of students, especially in these first days of school,” Mario Rusconi, head of Italy’s Principals’ Association, told Rai news on Monday.

He added that local authorities in many areas were distributing masks and hand sanitizer to schools who had requested them.

“The use of personal protective equipment is recommended for teachers and students who are vulnerable,” he said, confirming that “use is not mandatory.”

A previous requirement for students to wear masks in the classroom was scrapped at the beginning of the last academic year.

Walter Ricciardi, former president of the Higher Health Institute (ISS), told Italy’s La Stampa newspaper on Monday that the return to school brings the risk of increased Covid infections.

Ricciardi described the health ministry’s current guidelines for schools as “insufficient” and said they were “based on politics rather than scientific criteria.”

READ ALSO:

Recorded cases of Covid have increased in most Italian regions over the past three weeks, along with rates of hospitalisation and admittance to intensive care, as much of the country returns to school and work following the summer holidays.

Altogether, Italy recorded 21,309 new cases in the last week, an increase of 44 percent compared to the 14,863 seen the week before.

While the World Health Organisation said in May that Covid was no longer a “global health emergency,” and doctors say currently circulating strains of the virus in Italy are not a cause for alarm, there are concerns about the impact on elderly and clinically vulnerable people with Italy’s autumn Covid booster campaign yet to begin.

“We have new variants that we are monitoring but none seem more worrying than usual,” stated Fabrizio Maggi, director of the Virology and Biosafety Laboratories Unit of the Lazzaro Spallanzani Institute for Infectious Diseases in Rome

He said “vaccination coverage and hybrid immunity can only translate into a milder disease in young and healthy people,” but added that “vaccinating the elderly and vulnerable continues to be important.”

Updated vaccines protecting against both flu and Covid are expected to arrive in Italy at the beginning of October, and the vaccination campaign will begin at the end of October, Rai reported.

Amid the increase in new cases, Italy’s health ministry last week issued a circular mandating Covid testing on arrival at hospital for patients with symptoms.

Find more information about Italy’s current Covid-19 situation and vaccination campaign on the Italian health ministry’s website (available in English).

SHOW COMMENTS