The Minister of Education officially announced a last-minute measure that was taken for all schools in the country, with an impact for millions of students, the government official saying that in addition to the 10 million tests that should already be in schools, they will 540.000 more to come.
The Minister of Education also reveals the fact that in kindergartens not all children are direct contacts of one detected infected, if they wear a mask, or were not in the group when the case was detected, separately revealing the number of infected students, but also of the classes that passed in online teaching.
"Direct contacts are established only by the DSP, but if in a kindergarten group, even if they are small (and we have many private kindergartens that have imposed the rule of wearing a protective mask for preschoolers), the preschoolers wore a protective mask, they are not considered direct contacts. Moreover, those who were not present on the day the first case appeared at the kindergarten, are not direct contacts.
The number of infections among children, over 13.000, means 0.5% of the total number of preschoolers and students in Romania, which are almost 3 million. Starting next week, we have 10 million tests. Since we publicly announced the distribution of 10 million tests for students, we have supplemented with another 540.000 tests that will be sent and will be available in schools this week.
We have it under control, we know the situation at the level of the entire country. This is what the Ministry of Health anticipated. A multiplication of the number of infections, but fortunately the situation regarding serious cases, which require hospitalization, is under control, and we hope to remain under control until the end.
That 70% threshold was introduced for patients with serious forms of COVID, and the ministry is closely following the number of infections, the degree of occupancy of these beds, Thursday being the reference day. At the national level, the degree was 22%, in Bucharest it was 15%, and we have counties where the degree of occupancy is 5%, but also counties with the degree of occupancy of beds for COVID patients, which is worrying.
There are 46 educational units that operate online, the average being about one school/kindergarten per county. We have 2822 classes that have been suspended from the perspective of physical presence due to the appearance of at least 3 cases of infection." A declared Sorin Cimpeanu.
