A person working as a nursery school animator contracted the English variant, without being able to establish a link with a trip across the Channel. A screening is organized until Tuesday to try to understand where this first “indigenous” case comes from.
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Que is happening in Bagneux (Hauts-de-Seine), where two schools and a college have been invited to participate in a massive testing since Friday, January 8? A person working as a nursery school facilitator “working in two establishments in the city”, according to the rectorate of Versailles, tested positive for Covid-19 before the Christmas holidays – and was then found to be carrying the English variant of virus.
Teachers and regional staff from Henri-Barbusse and Maurice-Thorez schools, as well as those from Henri-Barbusse college, were invited to perform a PCR test on Friday. The school community “played the game”, since “200 people showed up”, according to the entourage of the mayor of the town, Marie-Hélène Amiable (PC). From Saturday until Tuesday, January 12, all residents of Bagneux who so wish – including students from the establishments concerned and their parents – are invited to come and be tested in a multipurpose room in the neighborhood.
At first glance, the method is questionable: why massively test adults and schoolchildren if the patient contracted the Covid before the holidays and complied with the quarantine rules? “The chain of contamination has been broken, since this person has confined himself and the tracing of contact cases has been carried out”, specifies in the World the regional health agency (ARS) of Ile-de-France. But the detection of the English variant then decided the latter to organize this screening. All the tests carried out in this context will be analyzed to try to find the variant. “We have also asked all the laboratories of the municipality to retest the positive PCRs”, adds the ARS.
The question of tests
So far, the cases of the variant English spotted in France were all linked to trips across the Channel. The person employed by the town of Bagneux represents the first “indigenous” case. “She did not go to the United Kingdom, insists the ARS. This means that the virus is circulating in Bagneux. For the first time, we are therefore trying to understand who infected the sick person, and not who it infected. “A” photograph “of the presence of the virus in the city can thus be drawn up, hope the health authorities.
In the ranks of teachers, the situation nevertheless questions: in this specific case, a large number of PCR tests could be deployed to carry out a massive screening operation. But elsewhere, the test policy promised by national education is struggling to be put in place. 10,000 antigen tests had been carried out before the Christmas holidays, in particular in high school, and the institution says that a million of them are “ready” to be deployed in establishments in the month of January. The case becomes all the more pressing as the English and South African variants, both present on the French territory, circulate more among young people.
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