For more than a year, Education Minister Roberto Furcal was firm in rejecting that children in both the public and private sector return to in-person learning. Minister Roberto Furcal insisted schools should not reopen until positivity declined to 5%. Private school representatives crusaded for months but were not able to convince the Ministry of Education to let them open for in-person learning.
Private and public schools were closed from March 2020 to July 2021, and the Ministry of Education instead spent billions in creating virtual learning programs. It would be the head of the Health Cabinet, Vice President Raquel Peña who finally listened to the private school representatives and authorized the reopening of schools. She also ordered that public schools, too, reopen for in-person learning.
The order to reopen public schools revealed that the Ministry of Education had not been refitting the public schools to reopen, while spending billions for virtual school programs.
Now, Public Health Minister Daniel Rivera says that data reveals there were more active cases of Covid-19 when the schools were closed (Bulletin #550 — 4,851) than now when schools are open (Bulletin #627 – 1,909 active cases). The daily positivity for Bulletin #627 is at 7.17% and the 14-day positivity is at 6.50%, above the 5% requirement level Furcal had insisted on for months resulting in a practically lost school year for hundreds of thousands of children in the Dominican Republic.
Dr. Rivera also points out that the fatality rate when classes in public schools resumed on 20 September 2021 was 1.13%. As of Bulletin #627 dated 5 December, it is down to 1.03%.
Dr. Rivera says more people are getting tested now than in the past. There are also more stations where these tests can be obtained for free.
Read more in Spanish:
Diario Libre
7 December 2021