Romania will reopen its schools on Monday, February 8, three months after the Government closed schools throughout the country to limit the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have unanimously decided that starting Monday, when the second semester starts, most children will go to school,” president Klaus Iohannis said on Tuesday, February 2, after a meeting with prime minister Florin Citu and the health and education minister, News.ro reported.

He said that the downtrend in new COVID-19 infection cases in Romania has led to this decision.

“In recent weeks, the incidence of the disease has declined a bit. We have fewer cases of people treated in intensive care units (ATI) and fewer people who go to the hospital every day. So, as the experts say, the trend is descending,” the president said.

He also pointed out that there will be three scenarios for reopening schools based on the epidemiological situation in each locality. The green scenario, which applies to towns with low incidence rates of COVID-19, allows all children to return to school. In the yellow scenario, which applies to cities with moderate incidence rates, only kindergarten children and primary school (I-IV grades) pupils return to school, plus those in the eighth and twelfth grades, who have to prepare for the national exams. In the red scenario, which applies in localities with incidence rates of over 3 per 1,000 inhabitants (over a 14-day period), only kindergarten and primary school children return to school.

Students who can’t return to school, either due to the yellow or red scenarios, will continue online courses, which have been going on for most of the first semester.

Prime minister Florin Citu said in a Facebook post that school reopening will be based on a “plan of measures” drafted by the Education Ministry and Health Ministry, aimed at protecting children, teachers, and the rest of the school personnel.

Education minister Sorin Campeanu offered the first details on Tuesday evening. He said that two COVID-19 cases in a class will lead to that class being suspended while several such cases of suspended classes will lead to the whole school suspending its physical activity, according to G4media.ro.

andrei@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Inquam Photos/Virgil Simonescu)