According to what was said at yesterday's meeting of the Ministers of Health and Education with the head of the Scientific Advisory Committee and the educational organizations, the most probable scenario is the implementation of the "test to stay" measure in schools, next Monday.
OELMEK, OLTEK and POED expressed reservations and concerns about the decision of the Council of Ministers and asked a lot of questions.
A guest on the show Alpha Kalimera, the Vice President of OELMEK, Themis Polyviou spoke about the two options that were proposed regarding the Test to Stay measure which will be optional and when it will be implemented.
Mr. Polyviou said that one option was to be implemented on Thursday and the other on Monday, which is the most common option. He noted that the check-up will be done by health professionals, in the morning before the children enter the school.
He added that the question was raised how the children can be considered close contact in the morning and move around freely in the afternoon.
"It will not be given, nor will you send a message for the children who will take the test, but the school management will be informed so that they know that this child took the test and will be entitled to be in the classroom. Mr. Tsioutis told us that the definition of close contact does not exclude anyone and concerns management and the test concerns children who are either vaccinated or not. With these data, we expressed our concerns and we will wait today for the detailed announcement to see in writing what we discussed yesterday ".
The measure, according to what was said at the meeting, will be implemented on a pilot basis for one month, only in Primary and Secondary Schools.
"They did not give us an explanation why it will not be applied in kindergartens", said Mr. Polyviou.
"Our concerns were so intense that the tones were rising. For us, this measure may be impossible. A professional will come to test in one school and do the same in two to three neighboring schools. The first hour will go until he issues the result and goes to the other school. So we believe that it will be implemented and there will be a disruption for the rest of the teaching periods ".
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