Schools in Mexico, Ecuador and Uruguay reopen classrooms in the midst of pandemic

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Students in Mexico, Ecuador, and Uruguay began on Monday a gradual return to face-to-face classes in schools after more than a year of virtual education as a consequence of the covid-19 pandemic, in the midst of a certain decrease in contagions and the progress of vaccination processes in these and other parts of America.

The return to the classroom began in Mexico City after the vaccination of teachers. However, it is a voluntary measure, as some parents are still afraid to send their children to school.

“I hadn’t been in a school for a long time and I’m nervous and excited because the school is very big,” Alvaro Lopez, a first-grader at the Teodoro Flores Secondary School in the Iztapalapa mayor’s office, told Efe.

“(The) concern was to rescue our most vulnerable students, those who are at risk of repeating the school cycle,” explained Mariana Ignacia Carrasco Cruz, principal of this school.

Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum reported that 1,103 schools opened – 387 public and 716 private – and that estimates indicate that 80,000 students and 10,000 teachers returned to schools.

Schools closed their doors in Mexico in March of last year, when the first contagions occurred in the country, which to date has 2.4 million cases and more than 228,000 deaths.

ECUADOR APPLIES “PROGRESSIVE AND CONTROLLED” PLAN

In the rest of America, a continent with at least 68.5 million cases and 1.7 million deaths, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), Ecuador also began a progressive return to schools in a pilot plan involving 1,301 educational centers and which for the moment is being applied in the coastal area, since in the highlands and the Amazon the school year is about to end.

Ecuador’s Education Minister, María Brown, said that the reopening includes 120,000 students in a “gradual, progressive and controlled” return plan launched by the new government of President Guillermo Lasso.

Also in Uruguay, a plan to return to the classroom began in schools in Montevideo, Canelones and Salto, where some 51,000 students in the first, second and third grades attended their first on-site classes after more than a year of virtual education.

The U.S. laboratory Moderna announced today that it has asked Canadian regulators (as well as those of the European Union) to approve the use of its vaccine against covid-19 in adolescents between 12 and under 18 years of age.

So far, this vaccine is only used in those over 18 years of age and, if approved, it would become the second vaccine to receive the green light for use in adolescents, after Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine, already authorized in the U.S., Europe, and Canada.

THE WHITE HOUSE ALSO SHOWS SIGNS OF NORMALCY

The return to some semblance of normality was also seen today at the White House, where the press briefing room was full again for the first time in more than a year since the pandemic began.

Minutes before the start of White House spokesperson Jen Psaki’s daily press briefing, the room was full of journalists, without masks or social distance, sitting in the 49 available seats and standing in the side aisles, a reflection of the progress of vaccination in the United States, where 52.8% of American adults have already received the full schedule of antiviral vaccines.

In addition, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that virtually all restrictions to combat the pandemic will be lifted as soon as 70% of the adult population has received at least one dose of the vaccine.

A measure that will not apply in some places such as schools, public transportation, prisons, nursing homes, homeless shelters or large campuses.

Some 68.6% of adults in New York have received at least one dose, so it is estimated that the lifting of restrictions will come in the short term.

PROGRESS IN PARAGUAY, COMPLAINTS IN VENEZUELA

In Paraguay, where the government has been criticized for the slow vaccination process, people over 60 years of age and pregnant women over the age of 60 and 20 weeks of gestation have been the focus of the immunization campaign since this week, while the country continues to increase its daily record of deaths due to the coronavirus.

In turn, the Dominican Republic announced that at least one dose of the vaccine had been applied to 3.8 million people, 49.3 % of its adult population, while in Venezuela, the NGO Médicos Unidos denounced the manipulation of data on vaccination after the Government announced last Saturday that “close to 11 % of Venezuelans” have been immunized.

“They manipulated the reality of the health system. They manipulated the cases. They manipulated the hospitalizations. They manipulated deaths. They manipulate now the vaccination figures,” the NGO said in a message on Twitter while quoting statements by the executive vice president, Delcy Rodriguez.

In the extreme south of the continent, Argentina sent this Monday to Moscow a flight of the state-owned Aerolineas Argentinas to look for the necessary components of the Sputnik V vaccine that will allow the South American country its local production, while Chile announced that it is extending the border closure decreed in April until June 30 to try to contain the pandemic, which keeps hospitals at the limit and a good part of the population in quarantine, despite the high vaccination rate.