After two years of restrictions, schools and colleges in Spain will leave the pandemic behind at the start of the new term, after the Government approved to end the ones that still remained in classrooms and dining rooms yesterday (Friday).
The Public Health Commission, in which the Ministry of Health and the regional health authorities participate, has updated the document 'Prevention, hygiene and health promotion measures against Covid-19 for educational centres', which in its new wording means a return to normality in classrooms.
When pupils return to school next week, all age groups (including preschool, primary, high schools and colleges) will now be able to interact in any situation and physical space, and won’t have to maintain social distancing in dining rooms (comedor), where the health measure was still in force.
The obligation to intensify cleaning in schools also ends, and now, sanitisation "will be carried out in the usual manner for the educational sector," according to the new protocol.
The text does maintain the recommendation of natural and cross ventilation in classes but establishes that as long as the epidemiological situation allows it, "the need for it to be permanent is eliminated, and it is recommended to ventilate several times a day, between classes, adapting the time to the characteristics of the classroom. In addition, the recommendation that schoolchildren be vaccinated continues.
The anti-Covid measures in schools have been progressively relaxed during the past year, and on April 20th, the obligation to wear the mask inside the classrooms ended, although currently they are still required on the school bus.
