Until the end of February, tests will be carried out three times a week, of which at least once (from January 17, twice) by PCR. A mask must also be worn in class (from FFP2 upper level), the requirement to be present remains suspended.
In response to a request from the APA, the education directorates have not yet reported any major absences among teaching staff. Educators and students were invited to test on the weekend. The website of “Alles gurgelt” was canceled at short notice on Monday morning – from 7:00 am for about 20 minutes. That is the period of time in which many students want to test before school starts. A spokesman for City Councilor for Health Peter Hacker (SPÖ) confirmed the failure of the APA. The test could therefore not be started by calling up the page during this time. On the other hand, anyone who scanned the code of their test directly got started, they said. There were no technical problems here.
Starting this week, the PCR tests for the elementary and special schools in Vienna will also be carried out via “Alles gurgelt”. Therefore, many newcomers should have accessed the homepage on Monday morning.
The procedure for ascertained corona cases remains unchanged
The procedure for ascertained corona cases remains unchanged: if there is only one case in a class, classroom teaching continues (without the positive child). However, the remaining children must then be tested daily for five days. If another corona case occurs in this class within three days, distance learning will be ordered for the entire class.
The new general rules severely limit the quarantine of students (regardless of distance learning): Children who have been vaccinated three times or up to the age of eleven are no longer considered contact persons and are not segregated. The same also applies if a mask was worn when in contact with an infected person – which should be the case almost continuously due to the mask requirement at school. This means that, as a rule, only those students who tested positive are in quarantine. These can test themselves free after five days using a PCR test.
AHS director spokeswoman Isabella Zins saw the schools in the Ö1 morning journal as well equipped for the expected Omikron wave. Of course, three PCR tests per week would be better – but this is logistically difficult to do. Primary schools would be more affected by possible teacher absences due to the class teacher system than higher schools – at these schools there is a larger buffer due to the larger teaching staff.
Source: Nachrichten
