French website “CheckNews” owned by the Libération renowned publication, has denied the statements made by Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis on Monday that schools re-opening in France was not such a good idea, as students and teachers had got infected.
To justify why it’s better for Romanian pupils not to return to school this academic year, President Iohannis said that “in a region in France authorities have opened schools experimentally and the move has not turned out well, as tens of pupils tested positive for coronavirus and several teachers ended up in intensive care”.
«CheckNews» has come out saying that Iohannis had made a confusion. The website says it has found no information in the French media mentioning the experiment evoked by the Romanian President. Moreover, the French Education Ministry has also denied it.
CheckNews has also contacted the Romanian Presidency’s press office which replied that Klaus Iohannis had referred to “a study conducted by Pasteur Institute during March 30-April 4, which surveyed pupils and teachers in Oise department in France, an area strongly affected by the COVID-19 infections, where there were more pupils and teachers hospitalized after being infected.”
The French fact-checking website confirms that such a study had indeed been conducted in a high school in Crépy-en-Valois in Oise, but that, contrary to what the Romanian president had stated, this testing campaign had been done one month after the high school had been closed. The above mentioned school closed its gates in early March and have not re-opened ever since.