Prague has the results of testing students. Antigens have detected 1,100 positive children
Compared to last spring’s testing, the number of children who passed the positive PCR test increased rapidly. Of the 35,000 children tested in the spring, only 15 tested positive, said Prague’s councilor for education Vít Šimral (Pirates) on Thursday.
Prague is trying to move to the British “test to stay” system, which consists in the fact that only PCR positive pupils are sent and other children are tested every day instead.
“British data show that this system, if there is continuous daily testing, is as secure as the system of sending children to quarantine,” said Šimral. In the middle of this system, the MESES group also provides.
“Children are being tested with an antigen test. If they are positive, they will be excluded from the team and wait for their parents. They go for a PCR test with the child, and when it is positive, the child goes to quarantine. The other children are not restricted, because they only met on Monday morning, “Jágrová explained.
Šimral further stated that he wants to negotiate with the candidate for Minister of Education Petr Gazdík on how to support the PCR method at the national level.
He also plans to negotiate with Prague universities about vaccinations in dormitories, where he would like to send vaccination teams.
Wastewater can predict the development of a pandemic
Prague also cooperates with the Prague Water Supply and Sewerage, the Prague 9 district and the University of Chemical Technology to test the viral load in wastewater.
Jan Bartáček (ICT), who leads the team investigating the coronavirus viral load in the Prague sewers, said that chemists use the PCR method in water testing as in clinical testing.
“The fundamental difference is that we are dealing with a large, more dilute sample, where there is less viral RNA. And we have to concentrate it quite complicatedly and at length, “Bartáček admitted.
Since the summer of 2020, it concerns the methodology they deal with within the project of the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic, during which time they monitored mainly the sewers in Prague.
They found that wastewater data corresponded relatively to the number of infected and that they could predict the development of a pandemic.
About a month ago, they found out that the situation in Prague is much worse than it seemed from the official data, today the data are relatively the same.
Testing in cooperation with Prague 9 took place twice since September 1, when chemists took a week from seven schools. “This is a pilot project and if it should start, massive support from the state administration is needed,” said Bartáček.
The mayor of Prague 9, Tomáš Portlík (ODS), stated that when they learned in August that PCR tests would not be tested, they agreed with the Institute of Chemical Technology and PVK on wastewater testing. By mid-October, they already knew that the viral rate was growing in schools.
“Where we have positive measurements, we do PCR testing immediately so that the sewage data can be paired with those specific individuals in the schools,” he said.
Their goal is not to test at all costs, but only where they have a positive sample of wastewater. According to him, this will save a lot of resources.
Jágrová: Hygienists do nothing but trace
Hygienist Jágrová also submitted for test results from all over Prague. From the preliminary results of the week from November 1 to 7, 553, 69 teachers were successful students and 6.5 thousand children were quarantined.
She emphasized that hygiene tries to proceed individually and not quarantine the entire class. But the number of cases is huge.
“This week we dealt with occurrences at 300 schools, we have 20 employees for that, so it is quite obvious that we are not able to handle it,” said Jágrová.
“Even though we have increased the number of employees, all employees no longer do anything but trace unless they answer to Mr Land. So it’s complicated, “she said.
She also said that it would be good for parents to look at what the self-claim form looks like, which she said is a simple tool that will speed up their access to specific information on how to behave in a positive test of their offspring.