The corona pandemic drivers: does it include schools?

Close the schools again? That is out of the question for the traffic light coalition. And doctors speak out against the lockdown for children and adolescents. “I urgently advocate maintaining school operations throughout the fourth wave,” said the President of the German Society for Child and Adolescent Medicine (DGKJ), Jörg Dötsch, of the “Rheinische Post”.

If the schools are closed, this not only puts a psychological strain on the children. Several studies on the subject show that more and more children are suffering from eating disorders and obesity. On the other hand, experts complain that there are significant educational gaps. “All over Germany, too many children leave elementary school without being able to read and write sufficiently,” said Felicitas Thiel, chair of the scientific advisory committee of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK) at a press conference. Inequality is also growing: if you have parents who can help with schoolwork, you are in luck. Many others, on the other hand, are left behind.

Early Christmas holidays instead of school closings?

So far, the strikingly high number of infections among the 5 to 19-year-olds spoke in favor of the school closings. In its latest weekly report, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported an incidence of 951 among 5- to 9-year-olds. It was even higher for 10 to 14 year olds at 1020. And for 15 to 19 year olds, the RKI reported 623 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants in seven days. Statements in which schools are declared a “safe place”, as Education Minister Simone Oldenburg (Linke) from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania recently tweeted, are irritating in view of these numbers.

But how can you get the problem under control without closing schools altogether?

Early Christmas holidays seemed like a sensible solution for some. It is right to prefer the holidays, especially in those federal states with a high incidence, said Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck (Greens) on ZDF. The decision on this, however, is incumbent on the federal states – this regulation has so far only been enforced in Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt. The Christmas holidays start there on December 17th. Lower Saxony, on the other hand, lifted the compulsory attendance from December 20.

The family – or: the pandemic drivers

On Wednesday, the Ministry of Culture (KMK) finally presented a study that makes all these concerns obsolete – and Education Minister Oldenburg is right. The study by the University of Cologne and the Helmholtz Institute for Infection Research shows that children are infected less often in schools than assumed. The real driver of the pandemic is therefore the family environment. The schools tend to help control the infections, said Dötsch at the press conference.

For the study, the researchers initially evaluated all publications on the infection process in schools. Regular reports of infections in schools were then recorded. For this, the federal states reported data from the districts. Finally, the researchers examined the transmission routes from March 2020 to August 2021.

According to the results, the risk of infection among students rarely exceeded that of the general population. During the third wave, the risk even decreased again. The health risk for teachers has also decreased – thanks to the new vaccination options. At the same time, the researchers emphasize that the infection rate among the schoolchildren differs greatly from region to region.

Overall, however, the corona numbers in schools have recently decreased, as the KMK announced on Wednesday. Accordingly, 96,000 corona infections were known among schoolchildren in the past week (previous week 103,000). The number of students who were also in quarantine has also decreased to 131,000 (previous week 150,000).

In contrast, the risk of infection in private households is much higher. The probability of developing Corona after contact with an infected person is four percent on the school premises. If someone falls ill at home, the probability of further infections is 15 percent. According to the RKI weekly report, 5223 cases were assigned to the “private household” area and 1614 to the “training facility” area.

A study by Imperial College London shows something similar. According to this, households are “the place of most broadcasts worldwide”. The risk of infection in the home is estimated at 38 percent for the unvaccinated and 25 percent for the vaccinated. Completely vaccinated people who became infected left Corona behind them faster than those who had not been vaccinated – although the maximum viral load was similar. A third booster vaccination did not yet play a role in the study published in the specialist magazine “The Lancet”.

Open schools mean slow contamination

The epidemiologist Hajo Zeeb from the Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research in Bremen is not convinced by these numbers. He continues to believe that school outbreaks will increase. The figures from the RKI only concern cases in which the origin of the infection has been determined. The vast majority, however, remained “without information”. In the case of the majority, it is not clear where they could have been infected. If there should always be school attendance, it must be clear that “an infection takes place gradually,” he explains.

For Zeeb, the fact that schools are also a source of infection is indicated by the fact that, in contrast to the family at home, around 25 people are in one room. Most of them have not yet been vaccinated. Heinz-Peter Meidinger, President of the German Teachers’ Association, sees it similarly. He confirms “numerous school outbreaks” in which students infected their neighbors. In contrast, in most households there are significantly fewer people and the vaccination rate is often higher in comparison due to the adults present.

Aerosol researcher Birgit Wehner from the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research considers it questionable that schools should be the safest place, as the Minister of Education Oldenburg claims. However, she points out that often no protective measures are taken at home – such as masks or air filters – and that ventilation is not carried out according to a fixed scheme. Therefore, the risk of infection in households could be higher.

Protective measures are essential

The experts at least agree that the infection rate in schools depends largely on how consistently the corona protective measures are implemented. A study by the Max Planck Institute recently showed that FFP2 masks provide 100 percent protection against infection.

And the institute’s aerosol calculator confirms: If 25 people (24 unvaccinated, the teacher vaccinated) sit in a 40 square meter room and one person is infected with the delta variant of the coronavirus, there is a likelihood “that at least one participant will be infected “, according to the computer at one hundred percent.

In order to limit the dynamic of the spread, school closings for two weeks or – as already decided in some federal states – early holidays could be helpful, says Zeeb. If politicians consider it necessary to reduce infections as quickly as possible and decide on further measures, schools would ultimately have to be closed, too, explains aerosol researcher Wehner. For them, however, this is one of the final steps.

Sources:,, DPA