Photo: Alexandra Koch/Pixabay

By KELIN DILLON

Barely one full week after their reopening, 39 Mexican public schools once again temporarily shuttered their doors to in-person classes after a number of their student populations tested positive for covid-19, said Secretary of Public Education (SEP) Delfina Gómez on Tuesday, Sept. 7.

A total of 88 schools throughout Mexico reported positive cases, representing .06 percent of the country’s 135,320 open schools, though only 39 of them closed as a result.

For his part, Deputy Secretary of Health Hugo López-Gatell said there was no evidence of face-to-face classes causing increased cases of covid-19 across Mexico. 

“So far there is no evidence that the opening of schools has had an impact on an increase in cases, infections or important cases,” said López-Gatell.

While the country’s coronavirus case count as a whole has gone down for the fourth consecutive week in a row, infections have continued to increase among minors, with 37,552 additional children’s cases added in the past three weeks alone.

As such, four federal judges from the Mexico City area have increased pressure on the nation’s government to expand its National Vaccination Policy (PNV) to minors, ruling that children’s constitutional right to health must be a priority and granting vaccination rights to certain families.

While not all vaccinations have been approved for minors, the Mexican Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris) already authorized the use of Pfizer-BioNtech to inoculate children this past June.