First case of covid-19 among students at reopened school in Rome.

A final-year student at Marymount, a prestigious private international school in north Rome, tested positive for covid-19 on 4 September, two days after the school reopened to students, in the first such case in the capital.

Rome's ASL health authorities provisionally placed 65 people in home isolation, including the Grade 12 student's class-mates and his teachers, as a precautionary measure, reports Italian news agency ANSA.

However the number in isolation was quickly reduced to nine of the student's closest contacts, with the other pupils free to return to school on 7 September, according to a statement released by the Catholic co-educational school.

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Those in isolation will follow their lesson via distance learning and their health will be monitored by ASL authorities who assessed the risk of contagion as "very low," according to the school located off Via Cassia.

ASL praised the school's management of the situation, which it described as "optimal," while the school stated: "We cannot emphasize enough the importance of strictly following the implemented social distancing, mask wearing, and hand sanitising."

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The news came less than a week after another noted international school in the capital, St George's, decided to delay its reopening, scheduled on 1 September, due to the number of positive covid-19 cases within its community. 

Italian schools reopened on 1 September for catch-up lessons, with the 2020-21 academic year beginning officially in Italy on 14 September.