As of Monday, schools in Slovakia can reopen for students of second-level primary and secondary schools. The condition for opening is that staff, students and one of the legal representatives of individual students have to have a negative test result of antigen tests certified in the EU, or negative results of PCR tests for COVID-19.
Several schools in Slovakia have joined this weekend's 'pilot testing' of pupils, parents and school staff for coronavirus as a pre-condition for reopening on Monday. The schools needed to organise the testing themselves. If a particular school does not organise the testing, it will not be allowed to reopen and it will instead have to continue with online education, according to Education Minister Branislav Gröhling.
He pointed out that the Public Health Authority and the Government have released a decree and a resolution, respectively, stipulating conditions for the reopening of schools engaged in the mass testing. Meanwhile, other schools will be dealt with in other documents due to be released next week. At the same time the minister wants to engage in talks with associations of municipalities concerning rules for the reopening of schools after the Christmas holidays.
Moreover, Prime Minister Igor Matovič stated on the social network that it wants to launch a pilot project of joint sampling for the COVID-19 disease, which is based on gargling. It is to take place at two primary schools. "Children briefly gargle their throats with salt water, spit into a glass and then pour it one by one into a common closed glass for the whole class," Matovič specified the whole procedure. If a negative result is obtained, the class will be able to continue teaching. Otherwise, this means that at least one student in the class is positive. Then three options could be considered. "Quarantine the whole class, perform antigen tests on all children or perform RT-PCR tests on all children," he stated the PM, adding that a combination of these options is possible.
Matovič also points out that the gargling method is only suitable for regions with a low rate of current infection. "With a higher rate of infection in the region, it could happen that every second or almost every class will be positive. This would cause a disproportionate overcrowding of laboratories when we need their capacity, "he added.
