[ad_1]
School closures are again a problem in view of the growing number of infections in Austria, but scientifically it cannot be said with certainty to what extent the roughly 5,500 educational institutions are responsible for the transmission of the virus.
Within schools, however, there was recently an astonishing analysis by the AGES health agency: it is more often educators who bring the virus into schools and infect colleagues and students, rather than the other way around. This was learned by members of parliament during a meeting with Minister Rudolf Anschober and his experts on Monday.
Following this knowledge, Neos social spokesperson Gerald Loacker again calls for alternatives to school closings to be evaluated: for example, expanded testing capabilities for schools and kindergartens, an expanded mask requirement or the division in groups.
The SPÖ is also pushing to expand the range of tests and suggests, for example, gargle tests for parents at home if their children show symptoms at this time, in the colder season. But one thing is certain, according to health spokesman Philip Kucher: “None of the experts have presented data showing the need to close schools.
Commitment
Isabella Zins, spokesperson for the AHS director, proposes a compromise in case of closures: “We want the schools to stay open. In case the lower grades also have to convert to distance education, this should only be done for the 7th and 8th graders. That would also be the case. Relieve parents, because a young people no longer need so much care at this age “.
However, a group of Austrian scientists from different disciplines immediately called for significantly stricter measures. Now he needs the immediate closure of all schools, the “obligation to work from home whenever possible” and the increase of the minimum distance from one to two meters, otherwise Austria would be threatened with overloaded hospitals and triages.
“In contrast to the rigorous blocking in spring, the ‘blocking light’ partly uses the wrong measurements and is too weak,” say mathematician Peter Markowich, computer scientist Georg Gottlob and the two physicists Christoph Nägerl and Erich Gornik, all of them sponsors the Wittgenstein Prize, Austria’s highest scientific prize. You see, “according to all the scientific evidence, Austria has been driving uncontrollably towards the catastrophe of overloaded hospitals for weeks.”
The Society of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, which invites you to a media talk this Tuesday, sees it differently: “In our opinion, the current figures are clear evidence that closing schools is not an effective measure to contain the spread of the virus. . The Tyrolean institutes have been receiving distance classes for three weeks and nothing has changed in the exponential increase in the number of infected people in the population, ”the doctors write.
