School is running again in most of the federal states. There are still discussions about how to deal with students in whose classes Corona cases have occurred. Health Minister Spahn wants to avoid a nationwide patchwork of rules.
The health ministers of the federal states want to talk about quarantine measures in the case of corona infections in schools on Monday. It should be about “rules that are as uniform as possible,” said the chairman of the conference of health ministers, Klaus Holetschek (CSU) from Bavaria.
So far, there are very different requirements for quarantine in the countries, should an infected student be found in a class. In some cases, only the people sitting next to you are already being quarantined. Many students have not yet been vaccinated because there are currently no vaccines that are officially approved for children under the age of twelve. Recently, the number of infections had risen sharply, especially in younger age groups.
Teachers’ association: vaccinated children not in quarantine
Federal Education Minister Anja Karliczek (CDU) called on the federal states at the weekend to agree on a “clear line”. She would be happy if the 14-day quarantine could be shortened with a clever test strategy, she told the editorial network Germany (RND). Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn (CDU) recently called for uniform guidelines.
“If there is good ventilation in the classroom, if perhaps there is even a room air filter system in it, then you don’t have to send the children of an entire class into quarantine,” said Heinz-Peter Meidinger, President of the German Teachers’ Association, in the RND podcast “The School Lesson “. “Then you can also concentrate on your immediate neighbors.” It also plays a role whether there is a mask requirement. Vaccinated children do not have to be quarantined.
Meidinger emphasized that the bottom line is how exactly the situation on site looks like. He understands that quarantine orders pose enormous problems for parents, but in some cases they are simply necessary. Sending only infected students to quarantine and completely foregoing contact tracing would be “a signal for the schools to be quickly infected,” he said.
Head of the Chancellery calls for “five days plus free test opportunity”
The director of the Institute for Infection Medicine at Jena University Hospital, Mathias Pletz, warned at the weekend not to rush to lift corona measures in schools. “For all we know about Delta, you can’t just let it go.”
Like the representatives of the federal government, the chairwoman of the Federal Association of Doctors in the Public Health Service, Ute Teichert, called for uniform rules. “The uncertainty among parents and teachers due to the many different quarantine rules is great,” she told the newspapers of the Funke media group (Monday). In some cases, the procedures differ not only from country to country, but also between individual health authorities. “The federal states urgently need to agree on nationwide quarantine rules for schools,” said Teichert. “That creates security and facilitates the acceptance of the measures.”
Chancellery Minister Helge Braun is in favor of standardizing and shortening the quarantine measures in corona cases in schools. “I would like a uniform regulation that is closely based on what we have already decided in the Prime Minister’s Conference, namely five days plus the possibility of free testing,” said the CDU politician on Monday in the ZDF “Morgenmagazin”. “I believe that this is the best way to prevent the spread in schools.”
