With a week to go before the return of hundreds of thousands of Catalan students to schools, it is normal that families are uneasy after six months with schools closed and the coronavirus pandemic not under control, as shown by the figure of more than a thousand contagions per day in Catalonia. No one knows for sure how the massive return to classrooms will go, what effect it will have on the transmission of the disease and whether it means the reproduction rate - which measures how many people on average are infected by a person who has tested positive - will once again rise above 1, after Catalonia managed, through great efforts, to achieve a fall in this ratio to 0.98 on Sunday.
It is clear that many schools have thoroughly prepared themselves, but the efforts of the educational community will be of little use if at the same time as this back-to-school phase - which also marks the final return home of the population living in large metropolitan cities - contagion is also kept to a minimum outside the classroom and especially in relation to people at risk, starting with the elderly. This is not the only obstacle, as approximately one third of the classroom groups of public school students have failed to meet the ratios of 20 children per class, a figure that was considered optimal for this exceptional year. It is understandable, therefore, that families are concerned and that the medical community is calling for teachers to be given checks regularly - if possible, weekly - and for greater safety, before the start of the school year.
Families read newspapers, they listen to the radio and watch television, and the information they receive is certainly not entirely reassuring. The increase in hospital admissions due to Covid-19 is not alarming but the figures continue to grow. This Sunday, the Catalan government reported that 690 people had been admitted to hospital due to the virus in the last 24 hours, 22 more than the previous day. As well, 123 people were admitted to intensive care.
It should be added here that in an absolutely irresponsible way, the Spanish government has not yet responded on the question of what sick leave will be given to parents whose children are quarantined due to coronavirus. Extending this uncertainty is almost inhumane at a time of so much tension and concern in so many homes in Catalonia. Especially because a vaccine is still a long way off and the numbers of parents demanding labour department assistance after their children test positive will spiral; that is absolutely assured.