The government of Puerto Rico denies classroom education to children not vaccinated against COVID-19

Recently, complaints have been received from citizens who are unable to access health services, thanks to the Executive Orders imposed by the first president of Puerto Rico, Pedro Pierluisi.  Now, he intends to do the same with education.  According to this portal, at least 27% of the country’s student population that does not have the “full dose” vaccine against COVID-19 was denied access to education yesterday.

“The vast majority are vaccinated. Those who are not vaccinated, basically, what we are going to do is that, we are going to talk by age. Between those who are 5 and 11 years old, if the vaccination process has already begun, they are going to be allowed to receive face-to-face education, but the school nurse and the school principal are going to verify what is the date that they are eligible to receive the second dose and they are going to follow up to make sure that this is the case. If they do not receive the second dose within the indicated term, then they will not be able to receive the classroom education”,

shared Governor Pierluisi.

In the case of students over 12 years of age, he shared that “what we are talking about here is the reinforcement. And the guideline is, all those who have their two doses will be able to receive face-to-face education, but they will have to inform when they will be able to follow up and if they do not receive the booster, by the date they can get it, then yes, they will not be allowed to receive face-to-face education.

Governor wants to give them a chance to receive on-site education.

“I want to do it this way so as not to destabilize the education system. If they have already taken an affirmative step, then I want to give them the opportunity. But based on the percentage, the percentage (of vaccination) is high. With the two doses you already have 50 percent of the children and with one dose we are talking about 75 or 76 percent of the children. The challenge is to try to reach 90 percent of the children with both doses. And that is the goal,” he added.

Many parents, using social media, have share that their children were left out of school. An example of this is the Pablo David Burgos School in Corozal, where students who did not have the “booster” were left out. According to information that reached this portal, more than half of the enrollment was ordered that they could not continue in the school.