Venezuelan kids wearing face masks in a classroom. File photo.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced that he expects students to return to in-person classes in October, once all the protocols and biosafety measures are activated for new student healthcare standards at all levels.
“That should be a priority from now on… because I really am committed and I believe that the time has come, taking all measures, to restart in-person classes in the month of October, for everyone.” He assured that by that date he is certain that Venezuela will be in ‘better shape.'”
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In a broadcast by the public television outlet VTV, the head of state asked the young leaders of the Venezuelan Federation of Students (FVE) to “prepare the students classroom by classroom, section by section, high school by high school, university by university, with great firmness and seriousness, in the biosafety measures: social distancing, care, adaptation of classrooms to airy spaces.”
“I want it to be the shared goal for all,” he pointed out, because with a return to school “we all win.”
Vaccine shortage, “but we are working”
The president also warned that the goal of immunizing 100% of the population is becoming increasingly complex as a result of the hoarding of vaccines and the economic, financial and commercial blockade. He reiterated that by the coming September 70% of Venezuelans should be vaccinated, as his administration recently estimated.
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“I ask life and God to allow us to have a more complete and better control of the pandemic. Advance further… and allow us to have access to vaccines for these months, July, August and September, and to progress in vaccination.”
He also instructed those responsible for the sector to verify that the teaching staff has been fully vaccinated using the vaccines that have arrived in Venezuela to date, to avoid contagion by COVID-19.
Finally, he reported that it is “very likely” that by October Cuba will have completed the clinical trials of its Abdala vaccine in children and adolescents up to 16 years of age. So, he added, that means that “we could start vaccinating boys and girls in schools and high schools. We are going to advance with a perfect plan… to achieve what I have been dreaming of for a year, what is necessary: with safety guaranteed, a return to in-person classes throughout the Venezuelan education system. We have to do it.”
Featured image: Venezuelan kids wearing face masks in a classroom. File photo.
(RedRadioVE) by Lucía Eugenia Córdova
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SL
