September the 26th, 2021 - The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has seen Croatian schools close their doors for long periods of time and children learn from home via what has since been referred to as distance learning. Online platforms and Zoom classes became the norm for extended periods, and kids were often in and out of self-isolation in their droves as their classmates tested positive for the virus and parents became more and more desperate about things such as child care. That's all about to alter somewhat.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the head of the Croatian Institute of Public Health (HZJZ), Krunoslav Capak, has explained the changes that Croatian schools and pupils are set to face, which should take a weight off the shoulders of not only the education system and the children, but worried parents who, in many cases in the past, exhausted many resources they may not really have had.
“It isn't necessary for whole classes to go into self-isolation, it needs to be determined which kids were in close contact. A document on that topic is being prepared, and most importantly, only those students who sat at the same benches/desks, those within a radius of two metres and those who traveled longer than fifteen minutes with a student who fell ill [tested positive] will be placed into self-isolation,'' explained Krunoslav Capak at a recently held press conference during which the matter was discussed in more depth.
The document will be completed by the end of this week, but it is not yet known when it will take effect, so until then Croatian schools must continue being extra careful as infection numbers remain quite high across the country.
"The assessment should be made by an epidemiologist when they receive information from the child themselves in these cases, and it's going to be a similar thing with preschoolers. It all depends on how long the contact with the positive person has been,'' explained Krunoslav Capak.
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