President: Most schools to re-open as of February 8, final decision on February 2

President Klaus Iohannis has announced on Thursday after a meeting at Cotroceni Presidential Palace that most schools will re-open as of February 8, along with the start of the second semester of this school year.

“We have had an important meeting with the PM, with the ministers of Education and Health and other health care experts. The topic of the discussion was: are we opening schools for physical classes or not. I can tell you that we have unanimously decided that most schools will re-open as of February 8, starting with the second semester, meaning after the one-week mid-term vacation. Of course, this will be if the pandemic evolves the same as it has done in the past weeks. So, most schools will re-open, pupils return to classes,” President Iohannis stated.

He added that a final decision after re-assessing the situation will be taken on February 2.

The head of state explained that local authorities will be the ones to decide on the re-opening and on the scenarios (green , yellow and red) of the pandemic’s evolution.

Therefore, in the localities that are under the green scenario, with relatively few cases of coronavirus, all schools are opening physically and all pupils will go to school.

In the localities under the yellow scenario, with a little bit more Covid cases, pre-schoolers from kindergartens, from primary schools and pupils in the graduating classes (8th grade and 12th grade) will go to school. The pupils from other grades remain to attend online classes.

In the case of red scenario, the only ones who will go to school will be kids from kindergartens and pupils from the primary school (0-4th grades), the others will continue to attend online classes (when the infection rate goes beyond 3).

When the infection rate goes over 6/1,000 inhabitants, schools are to shut down again and all pupils will go online.

As for the universities, the President mention that, as every university is autonomous, the decision to resume physical classes will be up to every academic unit. “Of course, they are free to align with the scenarios enforce in secondary education”.