EduMin Cimpeanu: Opening schools, not conditional upon teaching staff getting vaccinated

Education Minister Sorin Cimpeanu said on Tuesday that opening schools on February 8 is not conditional upon the teaching staff getting immunised against the COVID-19, but by epidemiological developments. "Since January 14, it has been publicly announced that vaccination is an important component, which, however, does not condition the major interest in opening schools with an in-person presence on February 8, subject to epidemiological developments. (...) Epidemiological developments are the factor that determines the decision to open the schools on February 8 under the three scenarios. (...) Vaccination is not a condition. (...) We, from education community, come up with the same elements that plead for the opening of schools on February 8, considering that the risk cannot be completely eliminated neither in Romania, nor in another country, but it must be kept within the limits within which it can be managed," Cimpeanu told Antena 3 private broadcaster. He said the joint order of ministers of education and health will include some of the measures to prevent infection with the novel coronavirus that already exist, to which others will be added. Cimpeanu said that measures that other European states have taken in schools can be adopted, as schools there operated without any increase in the rate COVID-19 infection. Chairman of the National Coordination Committee for COVID-19 Vaccination Activities Valeriu Gheorghita says that from January 28 all essential workers, some 35,304 people, will receive the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine 10 days behind schedule given the shortage of vaccine doses that Romania is currently facing. AGERPRES (RO - author: Roberto Stan, editor: Claudia Stanescu; EN - author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Adina Panaitescu)