As of today, the City of Buenos Aires will no longer require the use of the mask in all schools

With the number of daily infections stabilized and a large percentage of the population receiving at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, the authorities of the different provinces of the country began to make the health protocols that have been implemented since the beginning of the pandemic: such is the case of the City of Buenos Aires, which as of this Monday no longer requires the use of the mask in Buenos Aires schools.

As had already been anticipated, the measure that so far only applied to children attending kindergarten to the third year of primary school, since this week it was extended to pupils at the rest of the levels.

In this way, it is no longer compulsory for students attending schools in the City to wear a mask during classes, so it will be up to each of them and their respective families to use it or not. However, this element of protection will continue to be a requirement for teachers and other education personnel.

This easing was announced after months of complaints by Organized Parents, a collective that groups families of students and that even requested access to public information from the Buenos Aires Ministry of Health, which in the end never shared the evidence supporting the need for children to wear a mask in the classroom.

The discussion about this measure generated differences within the administration of the head of government, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta: while his Minister of Education, Soledad Acuña, insisted for weeks on the need to release the mask in the classroom, his health partner, Fernán Quirós, was more reticent and maintained that he had not yet had too much evidence to support such a policy.

Until now, Mendoza was the only jurisdiction that had made the use of masks more flexible in schools. In the first instance I had done it only with the kindergarten and primary school children, but just like in the city, from this week high school students will not require them to wear the mask in class either. Unlike CABA, Mendoza did free teachers from wearing a mask.

In fact, even when crossing General Paz, the situation is already completely different, because the Buenos Aires authorities clarified that they will not follow the same path as their neighbors and that in the province of Buenos Aires schools will continue to demand masks in classrooms.

“I'm not going to mess with the decisions of other jurisdictions. We follow the guidelines established by the Federal Health Council, COFESA, and our own Ministry of Health, which is the one who orders health issues in the province”, clarified the director general of Buenos Aires Culture and Education, Alberto Sileoni.

Days earlier, the provincial Minister of Health, Nicolás Kreplak, denied that there will be any changes in this regard during these months, but he said that, if there is no new peak of cases of COVID-19 in the following weeks, in May it could propose at the national level that the removal of masks in classrooms be authorized for all schools.

In dialogue with Urbana Play, Axel Kicillof's official stressed that since the beginning of the classes “there was no impact of the coronavirus” in terms of a sharp increase in infections, but stressed that “ventilation, chinstrap” and distancing measures still apply.

So far, the protocol approved by the Federal Council of Education before the start of the school year, called “Safe Classroom”, is in force almost throughout the country. The instruction maintains the use of a mask in classrooms as mandatory from the first grade onwards.

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