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There were difficulties in schools only in isolated cases. You are well positioned. This is what the ministers of health and education say. However, they have presented new guidelines to remove uncertainty from the system. They promise faster test results and fewer unnecessary quarantines.
Vienna. Criticism of the crown’s management in schools is getting louder. This has also not gone unnoticed by the federal government. It is not a coincidence that the Minister of Education, Heinz Faßmann (ÖVP), and the Minister of Health, Rudolf Anschober (Greens) appeared to the media on Thursday and presented a revised general concept for the education sector.
“I can’t get anything out of the general charge of chaos, sometimes I read it on the boulevard,” Fassmann said. Most parents are very satisfied with the school year so far, Corona notwithstanding. This is shown in the surveys available to him. The Minister of Health also sees no chaos. After all, things were “very well and precisely prepared” in the summer.
Apparently that was not enough. This has not escaped the attention of ministers either. “We have noticed in recent weeks that in individual cases, underlined three times, there have also been differences in interpretation.” Therefore, a revised 48-page guide on hygiene, prevention and procedures has now been presented.
This also defines how to treat suspected corona cases. It is precisely this that has recently caused problems in schools. Long wait times for test results and slow contact tracing (especially in Vienna) posed challenges for directors. They often made their own decisions about going to school and quarantined entire classes as a preventive measure. Of course, they cannot legally do that. However, in terms of time, nothing else seemed possible. Because the health authorities’ mills were grinding too slowly in some places.
Here the ministers of health and education promise improvements. There shouldn’t be a long wait for unnecessary testing or quarantine measures. “The health authorities (…) will do more (…) to carry out the test in 24 hours and have the result available in 48 hours.” However, it will remain dependent on the local health authority.
The so-called antigen tests are also intended to provide a remedy in schools. Rapid tests provide a highly reliable result within a quarter of an hour. They have only been approved by general practitioners since Thursday. They will be used in schools after fall break. However, not at the national level. For the moment, this will only be the case in three districts (Mödling, Innsbruck and Innsbruck Land). You don’t want to overload the logistics. The tests will not take place in Austria until December. They must be performed by the school physician or by a mobile team of physicians.
No quarantine with close contact
In schools, too, identified contact persons are only notified when illness is confirmed. That is, from the health authority. “Until the health authority is contacted and indicated otherwise, all children continue to attend school and remain in class.” So says the newspaper. This is supposed to put an end to the unauthorized action of so many principals and directors of education.
By the way, whoever has to be in quarantine should no longer decide the authority in the residential district, but in the one where the school in question is located. This is to avoid different decisions within a class. So one case of illness does not generally mean that an entire class should be automatically quarantined.
In elementary schools there is a relaxation here. If there is a positive case, not all classmates are tested and close contacts no longer have to be automatically quarantined. You are no longer considered one of the so-called K1 persons. The Minister of Health made a corresponding recommendation in mid-September. The default is now binding. In the case of kindergartens, all these innovations are considered recommendations.
The schools want to keep both ministers open “as long as it is reasonable.” Not all members of the government are likely to always agree with this. But get rid of the illusion, Fassmann said, that a two-week school closure would make things so much better. Schools are “a relatively safe place.” Currently, only seven of the 6000 schools are closed.
(“Die Presse”, print edition, 23.10.2020)
