Teachers with covid are infected outside the classrooms

Statistics from the Ministry of Education show that 73% of the cases are in Guayaquil, the city with the lowest presence rate.

The debate over whether schools should open or close amid a surge in COVID-19 infections has been the same since the start of the pandemic.

However, the Minister of Education, María Brown, has stated that does not exist a correlation between opening of schools, with the new outbreak that the country is experiencing.

For this, Brown relies on the figures for the first week of January 2022, in which they were detected 235 cases of teachers with the virus, on a national scale. From this number, 172 cases (73%) are in Guayaquil, the city with lower presence index, while the rest of the cases are divided into the rest of the country.

For example in Guayas only the 56% of schools have a return to class plan, while in Pichincha they exceed 80%. Cañar is the province with the most face-to-face plans, with 98%.

Actualmente hay 106.000 estudiantes inactivos (sin ir a clases) en el régimen costa esto representan el 5%. En la sierra este registro estará listo al finalizar el año lectivo.

This means, adds the Minister of Education, that the teachers are infected outside the classroom. Although he does not deny that it can occur in schools, he emphasizes that there are few, that is why there have been no outbreaks, since June 7, 2021, when the progressive return to the classroom began.

UNE del Guayas spoke

The National Union of Educators (UNE) of Guayas indicated that they have data that is contrary to the official ones. And that, while the Ministry of Education reported 87 cases for the last week of December, they counted more than 200. And he stressed that in students there are also “more cases than those reported”, although I can not support it, because it recognized that they do not carry account.

Tres niños están en unidades de cuidados intensivos (UCI) por Covid, a escala nacional.

Hilario Beltrán, president of UNE Guayas, pointed out that many of the teachers go to work in schools despite their diagnosis. “We are more concerned that, being contaminated, the teachers are making them work.”

For his part, Brown has stated that the educational community has a protocol in which teachers with symptoms of COVID-19 must report the case and not go to face-to-face classes.

Those who have symptoms (cough, fever, muscle pain, headache, etc.) should inform the manager of their institution immediately and go to a health center to be evaluated. “If the doctor considers it appropriate, a PCR test will be performed.”

In addition, classes from January 10 to 16, 2022 were suspended so that students and teachers can get vaccinated and, by way of preventive isolation.