La Jornada – Health sciences students will return to fortified classrooms voluntarily: Rector Graue

“Without getting into controversy, health sciences students from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) will return to the classroom face-to-face when they are voluntarily vaccinated against the coronavirus. As dean and doctor, I will not under duress expose them,” said Enrique Grau.

When participating in the virtual ceremony of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Salvador Zuberan National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition, he pointed out the need for students to return to the classroom urgently.

In addition to the practices needed to train them as health professionals, young people who have suffered so much due to the Covid-19 pandemic “need to revitalize, socialize, participate and live through the experiences of their ages and the aspirations that you have young people”.

In recent days, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has raised the need for universities to resume face-to-face activities, especially due to the drop in SARS-CoV-2 infections and due to primary school students returning to classes on April 30. August.

According to official information, cases of Covid-19 have not increased. On the contrary, the trend in this group is the same as that reported at the national level, from a steady decline over the last ten weeks.

For its part, the Autonomous Union of Metropolitan Autonomous University Workers responded to Lopez Obrador’s call to return to the classroom, and indicated that it was not necessary to return to activities face-to-face to demonstrate the essential nature of university work, as this had already been done “from the annoyance of homes”.

In a letter he delivered yesterday to the Presidency of the Republic and other federal agencies, he acknowledged the superiority of face-to-face education over virtual or distance education, but stressed that “the unorganized and life-threatening return of health is not required to prove it.”