Almost 10 million children may never return to school following COVID-19 lockdown
“Re-opening schools, even in a phased manner poses a lot of challenges for school managements, given that enforcing discipline among people on social distancing and wearing of masks is still a difficult proposition.”
Our today's guest is Paulina, she will share with us her school observations.
1. Introduction
Hello! My name is Paulina, I am 17 years old, I am studying for a career in accounting in the 11th grade.
2. How has covid-19 affected your student life?
The Covid-19 pandemic no longer affects me as before, because I am learning to adapt, but in the beginning I was very upset about this situation of not being able to leave the house, it was very boring.
3. Now that schools have reopened, have you gone back to school?
Yes, I went back to school and it was right on the first day.
4. What have you noticed in the school? Has the school distributed any bio-safety material?
No, unfortunately, but my school is doing everything possible to get everything organized.
5. What are the prevention measures against covid - 19 you saw that the government / school created to ensure your safety?
Hands washing with water and soap, always use alcohol gel, use facial masks correctly, etc.
6. And how do you feel? Are you enjoying going to class or you are scared?
Of course we are all a little afraid but it is better to go back to school, because it is boring to stay at home doing nothing.
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Protests against new restrictions designed to stem the coronavirus have broken out across Italy, with violence reported in Turin and Milan, in the country’s north.
On Monday night, some protesters in Turin broke away from a peaceful demonstration, smashing shop windows, ransacking luxury shops, and clashing with police, who fired tear gas in return.
Several hundred protesters assembled in Milan – the capital of the Lombardy region which was the epicentre of the global pandemic in March, at the regional government’s headquarters, with some throwing stones, petrol bombs and fireworks.
Shop owners protest against restrictive measures in Naples as new coronavirus cases soar to new records in Naples, Italy [Ciro De Luca/Reuters]
Protesters chanted “Freedom, freedom!”, the same slogan used two days earlier by demonstrators in the southern city of Napoli.
According to ANSA news agency, 28 people are being detained in Milan; three police officers were injured amid the clashes in the two cities.
At least 37,479 people have died with coronavirus in Italy since the start of the pandemic.
People took to the streets after Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on Monday imposed a new round of rules aimed at stemming the spread of coronavirus. He announced the early closure of restaurants and pubs at 6pm (17:00 GMT) and shut down theatres, gyms and cinemas.
Most high schools were ordered to hold online classes and a number of regions imposed night curfews.
The tough, but still partial restrictions, came as the government strives to avoid a nationwide lockdown such as the measures enforced in March.
While Italians went through one of the world’s strictest lockdowns in the first wave with a sense of solidarity and compliance, the new measures have provoked an angry response.
Molotov cocktails were thrown at the police who in return used tear gas to restore order in Turin, the capital of the wealthy Piedmont region [Massimo Pinca/Reuters]
Business owners, still recovering from the first closure, are exasperated amid fears that closing shops again would send them into bankruptcy.
Taxi drivers, restauranteurs, bar owners, and people who work in cultural industries protested peacefully in about several cities from north to south, including Viareggio, Trieste, Rome, Naples, Salerno, Palermo, Siracusa and Catania.
Trying to defuse the anger, Conte met protesters in Rome on Monday night to assure them that funds were on the way for business owners.
The government has promised financial aid to workers and businesses affected by mandatory closures, and relief measures were expected to be approved in a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
“The primary objective is to regain control of the epidemiological curve to avoid that its steady rise can compromise the efficacy of our health sector, as well as the resilience of the social and economic system as a whole,” Conte said in an open letter published on Tuesday, by the Corriere della Sera newspaper.
Italy is witnessing a resurgence of coronavirus infections, reporting on Sunday its highest number since the beginning of the pandemic with more than 21,200 cases – double compared with the previous week. As of Tuesday, 14,281 people had been hospitalised.
A study of hundreds of thousands of people across England suggests immunity to the coronavirus is gradually wearing off – at least according to one measure.
Researchers who sent out home finger-prick tests to more than 365,000 randomly selected people in England found a more than 26% decline in Covid-19 antibodies over just three months.
“We observe a significant decline in the proportion of the population with detectable antibodies over three rounds of national surveillance, using a self-administered lateral flow test, 12, 18 and 24 weeks after the first peak of infections in England,” the team wrote in a pre-print version of their report, released before peer review.
This is consistent with evidence that immunity to seasonal coronaviruses declines over 6 to 12 months after infection and emerging data on SARS-CoV-2 that also detected a decrease over time in antibody levels in individuals followed in longitudinal studies,”
The study was published Monday by Imperial College London and Ipsos MORI, a market research company. At the beginning of the study, in June, 6% of those who took the tests had IgG antibody responses to the coronavirus, they reported. By September, just 4.4% of them did. For health care workers, the rates stayed about the same.
Antibodies are the proteins your body naturally generates to fight infection. IgG are one type – the tests were not designed to detect other types of antibodies. Other research teams have found that other types of antibodies may persist longer than IgG does.
The results also confirm earlier studies that showed that people who did not have symptoms of Covid-19 are likely to lose detectable antibodies sooner rather than those who had more severe infections.
Younger people who had recovered from Covid-19 had a slower loss of antibodies, compared to people older than 75 who had survived an infection, the researchers found.
Still, not enough is known to determine if antibodies provide any effective level of immunity to Covid-19, or how long people may be immune to reinfection with the coronavirus.
Some infections, such as measles, cause what’s known as sterilizing immunity. People infected once have antibodies that can be detected for many years after infection.
With coronaviruses, scientists know less. It’s also unclear what contribution T cell immunity and the body’s memory responses to threats like Covid-19 will play in providing protection if someone is exposed again to the novel coronavirus. More research is needed to better understand the ongoing risks of reinfection.
The study has limits. The samples were not taken from the same people over and over again, but from different people over time. It’s possible people who had been exposed to the coronavirus were less likely to take part over time and that may have skewed the numbers, researchers said.
“This very large study has shown that the proportion of people with detectable antibodies is falling over time,” Helen Ward, who is on the faculty of medicine at the school of public health at Imperial College London, said in a statement.
“We don’t yet know whether this will leave these people at risk of reinfection with the virus that causes COVID-19, but it is essential that everyone continues to follow guidance to reduce the risk to themselves and others,” added Ward, who worked on the study.
Earlier national prevalence surveys that determined how many people have had Covid19 in Iceland recorded a durable antibody response over four months from the time of infection. Other studies have shown that different factors may impact how quickly antibodies decline. Age, co-morbidities, and the initial severity of illness all seem to play a role.
The UK’s Health Minister, Lord James Bethell, called the study a “critical piece of research” that could help inform the British government how to take the right action to control the spread of Covid-19.
“It is also important that everyone knows what this means for them — this study will help in our fight against the virus, but testing positive for antibodies does not mean you are immune to Covid-19,” Bethell said in a news release. “Regardless of the result of an antibody test, everyone must continue to comply with government guidelines including social distancing, self-isolating and getting a test if you have symptoms and always remember Hands, Face, Space.”
Dr. Claudia Hoyen, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at University Hospitals of Cleveland, thought the study was interesting and encouraging, since it suggests that at least where antibodies are concerned, this coronavirus acts like other coronaviruses. As with a cold, antibodies wane and people can get a cold more than once. Also as with a cold, people with robust immune systems, typically younger people, typically don’t see as quick a drop in antibodies as with people with older immune systems.
“This study is really like the first piece of the puzzle that actually gives us the indication that, yes, these antibodies don’t seem to stick around for everybody,” Hoyen said. “At least in this case, this virus is sort of acting like we can predict, which is a good thing because everything about this virus has been so off the wall.” Hoyen said the study also “cements the fact that we’re going to be in masks for a while.
“I know that we’re all hoping that this is going to end soon, but I just don’t think it will,” she said.
“I think the sooner we resolve ourselves to the fact that this is what we have to do to get through this, we can accept it and move on. This data clearly shows that your antibodies go away. So just because you have had it once, doesn’t make you’ immune and it also means you can be contagious again.”
Angolan President João Lourenço Tuesday appealed to the Government officials to keep the pace of operation despite the difficult caused by Covid-19, because work cannot stop.
"We must find solutions to the countless problems that our country still faces", recommended the Head of the Executive in his brief speech delivered at the inauguration ceremony of the new government officials.
He noted that, in the face of the pandemic, the work is carried out in very special circumstances, which requires maintaining momentum and seeking to obtain, even so, the best possible results.
At the Presidential Palace, the Head of State swore in Jomo Francisco Isabel de Carvalho Fortunato as minister of Culture, Tourism and Environment and José Carvalho da Rocha as Governor of the northern province of Uíge.
Also sworn in Daniel António Rosa, ambassador of Angola to Singapore; Diakumpuna Sita José, itinerant ambassador of Angola.
Also Apolo Ndinoluenga went to the post of vice governor of the province of Cunene for the Political, Social and Economic sector, and Adjany da Silva Costa consultant to the President of the Republic.
Luanda - Angolan Journalists Union (SJA) condemned Monday the arrest by Police officers of journalists during a demonstration held on Saturday in Luanda.
In its communique, SJA decried the successive and arbitrary arrests of the professionals in the exercise of their functions.
It states that this kind of attitude " remove the National Police’s moral authority to demand the citizens to abide by the country's Laws".
Four journalists from Radio Essencial had been arrested, along with their driver, as well as three journalists from TV Zimbo and a photographer from French news agency AFP, are said to have been detained.
The detention constitutes not only the contempt for the profession of journalists but also the Constitution itself, reads the Union’s communiqué.
"The National Police have once again set a bad example, for an institution wishing to be republican and in the service of citizens," the statement said.
SJA challenges the National Police to justify, in the light of law and the right, the repeated abuses by the staff against the right of journalists to exercise the Freedom of the Press.
On the other hand, the SJA thanked the Minister of Telecommunications, Information Technologies and Social Communication for the collaboration and efforts to release journalists, who were arbitrarily detained.
It calls on society to cease with threats to the physical integrity of journalists from the Public Television of Angola (TPA), despite recognising the right it has to demand plural and quality journalism.
The SJA recalls that, in a democratic and legal State, any offense to expectations or rights must be remedied by the bodies created by the State, and not through aggression.
Two hundred and twenty-seven new cases, one death and one hundred and seventeen recovered patients is the epidemiological balance announced last Tuesday, in Luanda, by the Angolan health authorities.
According to the secretary of State for Public Health, Franco Mufinda, who was updating the national epidemiological scenario, 155 cases were registered in Luanda province, 37 in Namibe, 18 in Malanje, 14 in Benguela and 03 in Huíla.
The new cases, being 141 males and 86 females, range in age from 01 to 8.
Regarding the death, Franco Mufinda said it is a 68-year old Angolan citizen resident in Benguela.
Those recovered, he said, 115 were registered in Luanda and two in the province of Benguela.
The country has 9,871 positive cases, with 271 deaths, 3,647 recovered and 5,953 diseased.
Of the diseased, 14 are in critical condition with invasive mechanical ventilation, 31 severe, 135 moderate, 417 mild and 5,356 asymptomatic.
There are 597 patients under medical care in the country's treatment centers.
