Variants of Covid-19: children will be massively screened

PATRICK HERTZOG / AFP

HEALTH – The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, announced this Thursday, January 14, a protocol to test up to one million children and teachers per month to detect Covid-19 and deal with the spread of the variant British in France.

“We have set up a protocol that aims to screen up to a million children and teachers per month, which is huge. By descending screening until the age of 6, wherever it makes sense, ”said the minister during a trip to Metz.

“What we know to date is that the virus actually appears to be more contagious in children. This is what we see in England. Without there being more serious cases, in any case proportionally ”, he said however.

Close schools? Not ”at this stage”

He explained that the government is monitoring “closely” this variant, and that “if the situation were to evolve and we had an increase in the share of the English variant (…) we might wonder” about a possible closure schools. “But at this stage, the French Pediatric Society was very clear on this subject yesterday (Wednesday) morning by calling for schools to be kept open,” said Olivier Véran.

Professor Jean-François Delfraissy, President of the Scientific Council, had defended, the day before, on franceinfo this “surveillance type screening targeted at schools and teachers” to “realize the percentage represented by the English mutant”.

For him too, the schools must remain open but with “a certain number of surveillance measures much stricter than until now”: “we must be able to detect cases very quickly and identify very quickly if they are an English mutant or not ”, in order to“ take a very quick decision to close a class or even a college if necessary ”.

Prime Minister Jean Castex explained on January 7 that “the health situation would really have to be extremely serious to close schools” because the consequences are “absolutely dramatic”.