A team from the Navy started yesterday to make the first contacts and to promote awareness and training actions among employees of secondary schools in the Algarve, with a view to disinfecting and preparing school spaces for the return of classroom classes for 11th and 12th grade students. year, which should happen in May.
This Wednesday, specialists from the Armed Forces were at Tomás Cabreira Secondary Schools, in Faro, and Dr. Francisco Fernandes Lopes, in Olhão. Today, the eight elements of the Navy – two from the Controle Infection Group and a six-member decontamination team – will be at the Poeta António Aleixo schools, in Portimão, and Secundária de Loulé, in this city.
As explained to the Sul Informação Alexandre Lima, Regional Delegate for Education in the Algarve, these four schools are receiving «awareness and demonstration actions aimed at operational assistants, so that they are prepared when students return to face-to-face teaching and have conditions and knowledge of how to act» .
“There is an enormous process and protocol for cleaning up all spaces in schools: classrooms, bathrooms, passageways, etc. This is what the Armed Forces are currently doing in the country's schools,” he added.
In the Algarve, «what the Armed Forces teams are doing is going to schools to try to understand the specific situation. A point of contact with the schools was collected, they talk to the person and try to understand the reality of the establishment, namely if there was any case or not, how are the facilities, whether it has been closed for a long time or not».
“If they consider that there is a need for disinfection, they will do it themselves. But this is only if there is a need. If a school has been closed for more than a month, what will they disinfect? That's why they take this first approach. If there is no need, just make the demonstration. They explain the process and then even go somewhere to demonstrate disinfection in practice», illustrated Alexandre Lima.
“They, when they reach the field, make the decision. They know very well what they do, they have a lot of experience in this matter,” he said. Hence, the regional Education delegate cannot say, for the time being, which schools will be effectively disinfected in the Algarve.
For sure, everything will be done in phases. “In the first phase of this awareness-raising and demonstration process, one hundred priority schools across the country were defined. In the Algarve, there are 12».
“This prioritization meets several criteria. One is whether someone was infected. Another has to do with the number of people infected in the municipality, and there is more», said the regional delegate for Education in the Algarve.
Despite not being able to point out “by heart” which schools are in question, Alexandre Lima recalled that, in all, there are 18 secondary schools in the Algarve, spread over 11 municipalities in the region.
One of these schools, the Secondary Manuel Teixeira Gomes, in Portimão, where the girl who was the first confirmed case of Covid-19 in the Algarve was a student, was already disinfected shortly after it was closed – closing that even happened before the suspension of on-site teaching at national level.
“We are getting the schedule almost for the day. Yesterday [Tuesday], I received the calendar for today [Wednesday], today I received it for tomorrow», added the person responsible for education, in the Algarve, explaining that this is a process that is being conducted by the Forces. Armed.
In the Algarve, in addition to the Navy team that is carrying out the actions in these four schools, teams from the Infantry Regiment (RI) 1, from Beja, will also be on the ground, under the supervision of the Tavira detachment.
On Tuesday, during a visit to Beja, João Gomes Cravinho, Minister of National Defense, and Jorge Seguro Sanches, Secretary of State for Defense and also regional coordinator of the fight against Covid-19 in Alentejo, visited this military unit and the Base Air (BA) 11, both in this municipality.
On that day, Colonel Correia Saraiva, commander of RI 1, revealed that “a survey of the schools in which to intervene has already been carried out and priorities defined, both in the Alentejo and in the Algarve”.
The main priority are the secondary schools of Moura, in Alentejo, and of Faro and Vila Real de Santo António, in the Algarve. In a second line of priorities are the two secondary schools in Beja, D. Manuel I and Diogo de Gouveia.
This is not, even so, “a linear process”, warned Alexandre Lima. "If they, in the course of this assessment that they are carrying out, identify that there is one more priority than the other, they will make that adaptation."
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