Nursery school children as well as pre-school and 1st cycle students return to schools on the 15th, and the laboratory screening program for SARS-Cov-2 provides for tests to be carried out when face-to-face activities are resumed. Asked about the deadlines for the fulfilment of this plan, during the press conference to present the easing of lockdown plan, António Costa said only that it would be gradual, following the reopening. "We are going to take advantage of this return to school to launch a massive testing program, which is scheduled and has already been announced, so that people can detect possible outbreaks of infection when people return to schools," he said.

However, the Prime Minister ended up not responding directly to the journalist's question, when asked about how the Government is going to ensure that all teachers and non-teachers are tested. The resumption of school activities, suspended since the end of January, will imply the performance of a rapid antigen test on samples of the upper respiratory tract (exudate from the oro / nasopharynx) to teachers and non-teachers of all levels of education - from kindergartens to secondary education - as well as to secondary school students.

According to the "Laboratory Screening Program for SARS-CoV-2 in daycare centers and educational and teaching establishments" released on Monday, After the first test, a periodic screening strategy will be "adopted in the municipalities with an incidence, over 14 days, of 120 / 100,000 inhabitants testing positive "through rapid antigen tests.

Children from daycare to the 1st cycle return to school on Monday, on the same day they also reopen Leisure Activities (ATL) for children up to the 1st cycle. Only after the Easter holidays do the rest of the students return, according to the lockdown easing plan presented last night by the Prime Minister, who explained that this will be a slow process. On 5 April, around 530 thousand students in the 2nd and 3rd cycles returned to face-to-face education, who also started to open ATLs again. Secondary and higher education students only return to face-to-face classes on 19 April, announced António Costa.