The president of the PNA, the National Association of Deans, Antonello Giannelli, after the Miur-Salute circular which set yesterday, March 10, the deadline for the presentation of documents, reported in a press release that tomorrow there could be problems at nursery and elementary schools to allow children without documentation proving vaccination history to enter.
From tomorrow, the Higher Institute of Health clarifies, the mechanism developed by the joint circular of the Ministries of Health and Education will start, which requires school managers to send a written communication to the families of children not yet up to date with vaccinations, inviting them to provide.
The work of the principals, explains Giannelli, "is dictated by the law, but this situation is excruciating for us and moreover, as we had widely denounced, it makes us work in a situation of great uncertainty". Also because, he adds, “we are not the gendarmes of the bureaucracy”. In any case, in his opinion, the situation does not lend itself to doubts or interpretations of any kind: "children in kindergartens or crèches who do not have the documentation proving vaccination or booking to fulfill the obligation will not be able to enter schools ".
The principals, if they decide otherwise, "could incur the crime of omitting official acts". However, “it is clear that after the promulgation, months ago, of the vaccination obligation law, more and better could be done. In addition, one wonders why an information system has not been activated in many territories. The law responds to a principle of civilization because the mortality rates on some pathologies had become worrying. But now there is a situation of confusion and uncertainty and this is unacceptable. On certain issues, delays are not possible ”. The president of the Higher Institute of Health, Walter Ricciardi, underlines the impossibility of postponing the deadline of 10 March for the presentation of the required documentation: from tomorrow, therefore, the principals who already have the information relating to children not in compliance with vaccinations will be able to summon families or send them a written communication. Specifically, children from nurseries and kindergartens who have not been vaccinated and who are not on the waiting list to be vaccinated will not be able to enter until their situation is regularized. The times in which this will happen are variable. For example, it is expected that they can be faster in the Regions that have adopted the vaccination register: in this case the schools receive the situation relating to those who are up to date with vaccinations directly from the ASL. Where there is still no vaccination registry, the school has to collect the documentation from the families and this could take longer.
