Mass vaccinations for teachers start to ensure safe reopening of schools
As Turkey counts down to in-person education, vaccination starts for thousands of teachers for a safe return to classes amid the coronavirus pandemic
MASS vaccination against the coronavirus started yesterday for teachers, as Turkey counts down to the reopening of most schools next week. Minister of National Education Ziya Selçuk was among the first to receive a COVID-19 shot and said more than 1.2 million people working at schools across the country will be inoculated.
Rural schools opened on Feb. 15 for inperson education while primary schools and classes for eighth- and 12th-graders all across Turkey will resume on March 1. The schedule for the other grades is still unclear.
vaccination, authorities hope to provide a safe environment for teachers and students who were forced to switch to online classes since last year, except for a brief reopening last year.
Ziya Selçuk, a former teacher, joined the staff of a primary school in the northern province of Çorum for vaccination. “Teachers can make vaccine appointments online or by sending a text message (to the health authority in charge of vaccinations) to get an appointment,” Selçuk told reporters.
The pandemic trends significantly dropped except for occasional fluctuations since the schools were closed, but strict measures remain in place. The reopening will coincide with the date determined for a normalization process based on each province’s performance in curbing the outbreak. “Since the outbreak started, we took necessary measures based on guidelines. All our schools follow the rules. Moreover, we benefited from production of sanitary equipment at vocational schools and lifelong learning centers. We have enough supplies, thanks to those places, to ensure inperson education without problems,” Selçuk said. Schools are required to receive a certificate after a string of inspections that prove they adhere to coronavirus rules, from social distancing in classrooms to hygiene standards (installation of sanitizing devices, proper ventilation and similar measures). “Many countries reopen schools, but we did not hear that any of them vaccinated all teachers before reopening,” Selçuk said.
Although March 1 was selected as the date for the reopening, media reports say this can be postponed or be limited in places with a high number of cases. Turkey follows a policy of reopening on a regional basis that allows each province to lift restrictions if the number of cases is low. Similarly, the decision to reopen schools or keep them shut will be the responsibility of the governorates, rather than the ministry. A report from Sabah newspaper says that schools would be open for two days a week and governorates will decide whether to open them for five days. Under the current plans, two days of classes will be complemented with live online classes for the other days of the week.
After the outbreak made its foray into Turkey in March 2020, the Ministry of National Education expanded its Education Information Network (EBA), an education portal, to boost online education. Teachers can connect with students through EBA and online classes via other apps while TV stations were established for remote classes. The country also delivered tablet computers to thousands of students without access to computers or the internet to support remote education.
The country started the vaccination process in January with the inactive vaccine CoronaVac, developed by China’s Sinovac. Health care workers were first to be inoculated. This month, the process began for inoculation with second doses. Apart from health care workers, senior citizens, staff at nursing homes and staff at pharmacies were vaccinated. As of yesterday, vaccinations reached more than 7.6 million people so far. The Health Ministry now switched to the second stage in the vaccination plan with the inoculation of teachers and other members of the public sector.
the strict travel restrictions and measures applied by the governments to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, number of the passengers across world airports sunk to unprecedented levels, while Britain’s Heathrow Airport saw the least number that were last seen in the 1970s. Accordingly, the airport plunged to a 2 billion pound ($2.8 billion) annual loss.
Heathrow called on the government to agree on a common international travel standard to allow passengers to start flying again in the summer and to provide business tax breaks for airports to help them ride out the crisis.
Still Britain’s biggest airport, Heathrow last year lost its title as the busiest in Europe to Paris as its flight schedules contracted more than its rival’s.
The airport said yesterday that during 2020 passenger numbers shrunk 73% to 22 million people, with half of those people having traveled during January and February before COVID-19 shut down global travel. The airport sunk to a 2 billion loss before tax on revenues which were down 62% to 1.18 billion pounds, but Heathrow said it had 3.9 billion pounds of liquidity and that could keep it going until 2023.