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Schools as drivers of pandemics
According to the four scientists, schools are “one of the drivers of respiratory viruses, that is a proven fact. Austrian studies that attempt to prove otherwise are methodologically incorrect or out of date.” Statements such as “Schools are particularly safe places” cannot be kept. Therefore, they recommend closing all schools immediately and holding online classes when possible. Schools are not the sole cause of the explosion in the number of cases, but “definitely a significant contribution” and “one of the most effective individual measures in history.”
They also recommend increasing the minimum distance from one to two meters. Businesses should also close immediately, especially open-plan offices, and the “obligation to work at home whenever possible” should be introduced.
With each day of “soft” lockdown, the damage to the economy and society, including children, increases. “Even when all the major downsides of school closings are taken into account, the catastrophe of hospital overload weighs more heavily. All who speak out against school closings must say they are in favor of triage no later than November 18, “say the scientists.
Children as virus spinners?
Children play a subordinate role in the epidemiological chain; this has been the common opinion until now. In particular, young children are considered to be more difficult to infect, are more difficult to transmit the virus, and because of the often mild symptoms, they tend to shed fewer viruses. However, they can carry as many viruses as adults.
However, there is now increasing evidence that the risk posed by children may have been underestimated. The largest study to date on contact person follow-up from India showed that one in four children between the ages of one and four became infected when they had contact with an infected child. Adults were infected by children much less frequently, the value here was between five and eight percent. A few weeks ago, an antibody study by Helmholtz Zentrum München revealed that six times more children in Bavaria were infected with the coronavirus than was reported. Experts believe that the number of infections is biased because children (mainly at the beginning of the pandemic, but also today) were tested less frequently.
