School year starts across Europe under shadow of pandemic

The end of summer means the beginning of the new school year for millions of children in Europe. In most countries, schools reopened for in-person instruction under the cloud of the still menacing COVID-19 pandemic, reported Xinhua.

The rules vary, but the national authorities across the continent share the hope that after a full year of teaching through a pandemic using various applications, virtual tutoring, video conferencing tools or online learning software, the 2021-2022 school year will allow teachers and students alike to return to "normal."

While only a handful of COVID-19 vaccines have been tested for school-age children and most countries are still mulling to authorize the vaccination of young people under 18 years of age, it is generally understood that appropriate health protocols must be in place to protect vulnerable children from getting COVID-19.

In North Macedonia, despite the recent increase in the number of new coronavirus infections, the government decided in August to reopen schools for in-person teaching. It cited the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

The country's Ministry of Education and Science has drawn up two possible scenarios for an eventual worsening of the country's general epidemiological picture.

Students could either continue to attend classes mostly online as they did during the previous school year, or learning could alternate between remote and in-person depending on the local pandemic situation.

The country's preferred alternative is in-person learning. In a recent interview with North Macedonia's Media Information Agency, Education Minister Mila Carovska said that in-person classes are "very important for learning and socialization and for the protection of students' mental health."

Although vaccination against COVID-19 is not mandatory for teachers and students in North Macedonia, according to Carovska, over 70 percent of teachers and other school employees have already been vaccinated.

As of Tuesday, over 1.25 million of the country's two million population had been vaccinated, 531,033 of them with two doses.

On Tuesday, the Health Ministry reported 870 new coronavirus cases and 37 COVID-19-related deaths.

Meanwhile, the authorities in Denmark are warning the country's youth against celebrating their reunion at school at the country's nightclubs and discos that reopened their doors on Wednesday.

"I would like to give one piece of advice to the young people who want to go out on the town: You must be vaccinated," Henrik Ullum, director of the Statens Serum Institut (SSI), the country's infectious diseases agency, told the Danish broadcaster TV2.

Ullum stressed that the decision to reopen the nightclubs for the first time since March 2020 -- and this on the first day of the new school year -- was not advised by his department but was a political decision made by a majority of parties in the Danish Parliament.

Ullum said that the low vaccination coverage among the country's youth was a source of serious concern.

He said he was wary of super-spreader events that could undo "all that we have avoided for a year and a half."

Revelers returning to nightlife venues across Denmark are still required to provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test, but from Sept. 10 even this rule will be abolished as COVID-19 will no longer be classified as a "socially critical disease" in the country.

As of Sept. 1, customers at Denmark's fitness centers, restaurants, festivals, seated events and playgrounds are no longer required to provide such proof.

In the past 24 hours, the SSI registered 825 new COVID-19 infections and no death, bringing the national totals to 346,518 cases and 2,584 deaths.

According to the SSI, 75.3 percent of Denmark's population, or 4,409,415 people, have started the COVID-19 vaccination process. Of them, 4,210,891 people (71.9 percent) are fully vaccinated.

In Cyprus, the authorities started to vaccinate 12-15-year-olds in early August as part of a mass inoculation program.

By the end of August, 78.6 percent of the eligible population had received the first dose of a European Union (EU) licensed COVID-19 vaccine and 74.2 percent both doses, falling short of the target of vaccinating up to 82 percent of people over 12 years of age before the beginning of the school year.

Since the middle of July, the country's Health Ministry has been offering COVID-19 jabs at walk-in vaccination centers without prior appointment.

In Belgium, the authorities have relaxed the face mask mandate in schools in Wallonia and Flanders, but in the capital Brussels the mask policy is still partly enforced.

Accordingly, primary school pupils in Flanders and Wallonia are not required to wear masks, while secondary school students can remove their masks once seated in class.

The decision follows a consultation of education authorities and health experts and the rules vary according to age group and region, Brussels Times reported.

In the Brussels-Capital Region, pupils must continue to wear masks at all times indoors, including during lessons.

Outdoors, some Dutch-speaking schools in Brussels require pupils to wear a face mask when they are unable to keep a social distance.

As of Aug. 30, Belgium had fully vaccinated 73.0 percent of its population, the Sciensano public health institute reported on Wednesday.

Over the past 24 hours, the health authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) have reported 906 new COVID-19 cases and 11 deaths, a sharp increase compared to 474 new cases confirmed a day earlier.

In the grips of a fourth wave of the pandemic, the country started the new school year offline and in full capacity throughout the country on Wednesday, except six cantons, where the semester will start on Sept. 6.

All schools across the country have to ensure that staff and students alike follow all preventive measures, like masking and distancing indoors and outdoors, observing strict hand hygiene, undertaking regular temperature checks and reporting all detected infections.

In Slovenia, the new school year started for almost 270,000 Slovenian primary and secondary school children and nearly 30,000 teachers on Wednesday.

Classes will be held in person for everyone for the time being but with safety measures in place, including mandatory COVID-19 certificates for staff, masks for staff and all children in communal areas, and voluntary self-testing for older children.

If schools flout the rules, they may be ordered by inspectors to switch to remote classes.