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President Iohannis: New school year to begin on September 14, with generally in-person classes
President Klaus Iohannis announced on Wednesday that the new pre-university school year will start on September 14, with most students attending in-person classes, and that three scenarios have been devised on how courses will be organised.
"The new pre-university school year begins on September 14. For most students, this means that they will attend classes in person. Depending on the number of sick persons in each locality, three scenarios have been developed that take into account the impact of the pandemic in each school, in each particular locality. These criteria have a broader scope, they apply not only for schools, but they will also be used to assess the impact of the pandemic on schools. These three scenarios are: the 'green' scenario, which means that in the respective locality, less than one person has been found on average in the last 14 days with COVID-19; the second, 'yellow' scenario - between one and three infected persons have been detected on average in the last 14 days; the third scenario - more than three new illness cases have appeared in the respective locality on average over the last 14 days," the head of the state told a press conference at the Cotroceni Palace.
The President said the decisions taken today will be detailed in the coming weeks, pointing out that the functioning of each particular school will be decided at local level.
According to him, the way classes are being held in each school will be decided near the start of the school year, but that most cities, including Bucharest, would now qualify for the 'green' scenario, and about 50 localities are in the 'red' scenario.
"Bucharest falls into the 'green' scenario because even if there is a relatively higher number of cases, with its very large population, according to this criterion accepted by the World Health Organization, the Ministry of Health, Bucharest falls into the 'green' category. To be very well understood: most localities in Romania qualify for the 'green' scenario: very few or zero infection cases. (...) The measurement will be made when the school starts. At this moment, as an example, there are a few hundred localities in Romania that fall into the 'yellow' scenario and there are only 50 localities in Romania that would range today into the 'red' scenario. This is why I said: school will begin for most pupils. And if the number of cases increases in one locality, then the school closes for that particular locality or for that neighborhood. It is not possible to close it in its entirety, because it is not epidemiologically motivated," the president showed during a press conference held at the Cotroceni Palace.
He explained that the classification in one of the three scenarios will be made according to the average number of new COVID-19 cases during the last 14 days per one thousand inhabitants. The President mentioned that the data would be constantly updated. "These analyses will be very detailed, they will be carried out permanently and will be constantly updated. It is important that these data are objective and the criteria are applicable by the county commands. And yes, we will have the situation when in some localities the school will be online, because there are many cases, and in other localities school will carry on in an absolutely normal manner, with the physical presence of the students, because in that locality there are few cases. This is why we use this division on scenarios, which is accepted by many countries," Iohannis said.
Earlier, the president announced that the new pre-university school year will start on September 14, and most students will actually go to school, and there will be three scenarios regarding the way courses will be organized.
"For each school, the County Command for Emergency Situations will decide whether to go with the 'green' scenario, which means that all students physically go to school and normal classes are held; or, if they go with the third scenario - 'red', when no one goes to school and everything is done online, or with the 'yellow' medium-risk scenario, which means that some of the activities are held in school and some are held online," explained Iohannis.