This is the result of a study by Austrian scientists in the journal “Healthcare”. Even with teachers in the classroom, only 64 percent of the students stated that they had put on their masks correctly during the obligation to wear them, while without a teacher in the room it was only 32 percent.
For their study, the sports scientists Gerald Jarnig and Mireille NM van Poppel (University of Graz) and the pediatrician Reinhold Kerbl (LKH Hochsteiermark) surveyed almost 900 Salzburg and Carinthian children and young people at a middle school or an upper school last school year. For different settings (classrooms with or without teachers, school buildings outside the class without teachers), they were asked to indicate whether they had worn their masks correctly.
Result: Even with a teacher in the class, less than two-thirds of the students wore their masks correctly. Without a teacher in the class (i.e. especially during the break) it was then just under a third. Outside the classroom, i.e. in the corridor, 58 percent wore their masks properly.
The type of violation of the mask requirement was also queried: Without a teacher in the classroom, the variant in which neither the mouth nor nose was covered dominated. With the teacher in the classroom or outside the classroom, the “coati” was predominant (mouth covered, nose uncovered). Some of the students even assigned themselves to the original variant “mouth uncovered, nose covered”.
Carrying discipline could be improved
The authors of the study calculated that from middle school/AHS lower grades onwards, students spent between 15 and 25 minutes a day in class without a teacher. In addition, they spent up to 25 minutes outside of class. Carrying discipline could therefore probably be improved if there were teachers with them during this time – however, the school system, which provides for a constant change of teachers after every lesson after elementary school, stands in the way of this.
In general, the scientists consider a mask requirement in schools to be justified “in critical epidemiological situations”. Even if students wear their masks incorrectly or not at all for a certain period of time, there remains a time when the transmission of infection is at least reduced. However, this must be supplemented by age-specific information in order to create the appropriate awareness of the problem among the students. In the current corona situation with less pathogenic variants, the researchers do not think that a general long-term obligation to wear masks is appropriate.
Source: Nachrichten
