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72 percent participated in the mass testing for teachers in schools and kindergartens. For the Minister of Education, Faßmann, this is “a great value”. The compulsory school pupils have returned to schools as of today, the secondary pupils will continue in January.
On Monday, many students returned to their schools for classes. The students of the first eight grades and of Matura’s classes now receive classes at the place. Before that, teachers, like kindergarten teachers, were specially invited to participate in mass tests. At least teachers in most federal states – in Vienna, Tyrol and Vorarlberg there were no exams of their own, educators are “taken with them” when examining the general population. Education Minister Heinz Faßmann took stock of the situation at a press conference on Monday.
He also said high school students should return to face-to-face classes at the beginning of the new year. These young people have a particularly high number of social contacts, which is why they are still in distance training. For school work, they can be brought to school, in groups, even before Christmas. They should go back to the school building in January – that’s a high priority, says Fassmann.
Parental associations against the mask requirement
Children between the ages of 10 and 14 should wear mouth and nose protection. This is a “relatively mild means” to curb infections, so Faßmann. He informed parents that they were concerned that teachers behaved with understanding and attention. Carrying them must be handled sensibly, the school was not Operating room.
He receives emails, sometimes mass and serial emails, from parents who strictly reject the requirement to wear a mask in class, but without saying how they would envision safe daily school life in times of a pandemic, Fassmann said. It seems like an underestimation of the health risk posed by the corona virus. More recently, parents’ associations had also campaigned against the requirement to wear a mask during classes and called for alternatives such as the use of ventilation devices or protective Plexiglas walls so that young people can remove the mask at least when seated.
In a letter to education directorates, the education ministry has already given schools instructions on what to do if parents threaten criminal charges or lawsuits for official responsibility because of the mask requirement: schools should pass the matter on to the directions of education. These in turn want to refer to a pending decision of the Constitutional Court on oral and nasal protection in schools, which remains to be seen.
72 percent of educators evaluated
How were these voluntary tests, how many teachers participated? Minister Faßmann and Major General Rudolf Striedinger took stock of the situation. A total of 72 percent of the educators had been tested in the six federal states. For Faßmann this is “a great value”. About 300 people were positive, that is, 0.24 percent, according to the minister. Without the tests, they would have returned to schools. The chains of infection have been broken so successfully.
And: the proportion of positives, 0.24 percent, is significantly below the value of the last study of unreported figures from November at 3.1 percent. Now that the positive results have not yet been confirmed by PCR testing, this value should drop further. According to Faßmann, these low infection rates could be due to the fact that those who are health conscious anyway and who adhere to the rules tend to participate in a voluntary test.
Frequent and regular tests are important and will become normal and everyday life, Faßmann said with a view to schools. There are test kits for cases that could get to school quickly. The minister now has a very good feeling about starting school, because the number of unreported cases, as evidence has shown, is very low.
About 8,000 soldiers were deployed to Austria over the weekend, including 5,000 soldiers and civil servants in mass tests in the federal states, says Major General Rudolf Striedinger, who praised the armed forces.
64% tested in Upper Austria, 78.1% in Salzburg
The figures for the different federal states were already known. In Upperösterreich 25,953 of the 38,000 education sector employees (about 64 percent) were screened over the weekend. 64 people were positive for the crown, which corresponds to a participation of 0.24 percent. Those who tested positive must now undergo a PCR test. The state and the department of education were very pleased with the number of participants. There were technical problems registering for the tests.
8283 people attended the two days Massive tests of the Salzburg crown involved. This means that 78.1 percent of the 10,611 Salzburg teachers took part in the tests. 19 of the samples were positive. Previously, the number of people tested was assumed to be too high; Educational institutions and teaching staff working in various schools had been counted twice. The tests were carried out in the barracks, 470 soldiers were in attendance. On-site support came from some 50 Red Cross paramedics, employees of the health authorities and medical students.
In the massive tests in Lower Austria a total of 25,965 educators out of about 36,000 people (about 72 percent) participated over the weekend. 54 positive antigen tests (0.15 percent) were recorded at the 29 test sites with 71 test tracks used by the military, which have yet to be confirmed with a PCR test. While 19,335 people were tested on Saturday, only 6,630 people showed up on Sunday. The roughly 900 soldiers and military officials conducted the tests along with members of the volunteer fire department, the Red Cross, the Samaritans Association and other volunteers, he said.
Voluntary
Since participation is voluntary, teachers do not have to report whether they took the test or not. The situation is different if the antigen test is positive and this is confirmed by the subsequent PCR test: in this case, the affected persons had to “inform the management of the center immediately afterwards”.
