The decision of the Ministry of Education follows an opinion issued by the Directorate-General for Health (DGS), which recommends "a 'screening' aimed at the school community", regardless of whether people are vaccinated or not.

The next school year starts between September 14th and 17th and by October 15th all students in the 3rd cycle and secondary education and employees of all levels of education must be tested.

Until the end of the first week of classes, teachers and staff will be tested, in an exercise that starts on September 6th and ends on the 17th. Secondary students will follow in the next two weeks, between September 20th and October 1st, and finally the students of the 3rd cycle, between October 4th and 15th.

In a statement, the Ministry of Education justifies the measure referring to “the success of the National Testing Strategy for SARS-CoV-2”, which demonstrated the relationship between cases of infection in the school context and the incidence in the community.

Teachers and staff began to be vaccinated against covid-19 during the last school year, in March, and now children from the age of 12 are being vaccinated.

Over the weekend of August 14th and 15th alone, more than 160,000 young people between 16 and 17 years old were vaccinated and on Saturday and Sunday about 148,000 young people between 12 and 15 years old received their first dose of the vaccine.

The next weekend will also be dedicated to these age groups, who should have a complete vaccination by September 19, according to the calendar defined by the Covid task-force.