Cataluña eliminates quarantine in schools from Wednesday

According to the departments of Salut and Educació, Catalonia approves the elimination of school quarantines from this same Wednesday, February 23. The ‘conseller’ Josep Maria Argimon and the spokesperson of the Government, Patrícia Plaja, already advanced last week that this week would enter into force the new measure. Carolina Darias, Minister of Health, asked the autonomies to continue with the unity in this matter and to go coordinated.

Argimon assured that ”is not a unilateral decision” after explaining that the Generalitat has referred to the previous recommendation of the Public Health Commission, who claim that ”only positive contacts should be identified when the environment is considered to be high risk’, such as hospitals or nursing homes.

After this new decision was taken, the covid case management protocol was annulled, which all Catalan schools were obliged to follow in full when a positive case was diagnosed. Therefore, from this Wednesday will stop identifying the close contacts of students who have been infected with coronavirus and will not require quarantines for them. Argimon assured that non-vaccinated children will not be forced to quarantine when there are more than five positive children in the classroom.

Despite this, one exception still remains, and that is that the special education centers will continue to use the ‘Traçacovid’ program that Educació initiated to control the evolution of the pandemic in educational centers. Tuesday will be the last day for all the other schools.

Through the disappearance of the protocol, it will not be necessary for schools and families to notify that the reason for the absence of the child is due to the coronavirus, although the infected person must keep the quarantine that is required for those infected. It will also stop testing teachers for antigens.