Schools and Corona – ventilation is sufficient for now – education

Chancellor Angela Merkel already hinted at her skepticism on Wednesday night, and Chancellery Minister Helge Braun made it clear the next morning: the resolutions reached by the federal and state governments could prove too lax to curb the renewed pandemic. Parents in particular are concerned about this. They fear that many schools and nurseries could be closed again if the infection rate continues to rise so rapidly.

Consequently, tension was high as to what measures the Conference of Education Ministers would decide on Friday for schools in the winter semester. Would the same apply to the KMK announcement as Helge Braun said: that “we”, the citizens, “must do more and be more careful” than the politicians have decided?

It looks a lot like this. When KMK President Stefanie Hubig left the meeting at lunchtime Friday to brief reporters, the decisive sentence fell within ten minutes. “We have not decided anything new in that regard,” says the Rhineland-Palatinate (SPD) Minister of Education. So it sticks with the general hygiene plan from early September, which largely outlines in a non-binding way how school operations should be conducted in federal states based on infection rate. The plan was compared with the recommendations for schools that the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) issued this Monday, and it was seen that it is the “correct approach”, “to proceed in stages when the incidence increases”.

The problem: The KMK plan does not link stricter measures, such as the requirement for a mask in class, with specific infection figures, although the RKI anticipates exactly that. In its recommendations, it advises the use of masks in class 5 onwards if more than 35 infections per 100,000 inhabitants occur in seven days. If the incidence rises above 50, according to the RKI, even elementary school students are required to use the piece of material while studying.

“From our point of view, an automatism does not make sense”, says the president of KMK. The decision must be made based on the local situation. The RKI also mentions the regional aspect, an infection process concentrated in individual clusters, for example, could be an alternative indicator for the decision of measures. This freedom does not go far enough for education ministers: it should be left to the federal states to decide when and to what level they react. And so it happens that so far only Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg have committed: there, out of 35 new infections, the mask requirement for older students in class applies. If the value exceeds 50, the mask is transferred to the classrooms of the little ones in Bavaria.

The fact that countries insist on continuing to disagree calls, unsurprisingly, for criticism on stage. The president of the Association of German Teachers, Heinz-Peter Meidinger, says that the Süddeutsche Zeitung: “The time in which you could refrain from taking stricter hygiene measures in schools when limit values ​​were exceeded is over because the pandemic is now spreading to all sectors of the population.” The German Association of Philologists also demands “a very clear orientation”, the KMK graduated model must include the incidence values ​​of the RKI. The Hamburg student council also asks for masks in class and, as a precaution, allows students to vote on a voluntary mask requirement over the weekend. The thought: be more careful than the policy demands.

After all: Hamburg prescribes masks in classes for high school and vocational students on Friday lunchtime. Also a nod to KMK? “Ventilation is still the most important thing,” says Stefanie Hubig, referring to the Federal Environment Agency’s advice to open the windows wide for three to five minutes every 20 minutes. This advice should not reassure all parents.

At the moment, it is mainly the mothers and fathers of younger children who still have reason to be confident. Nursery schools and primary schools, as has been shown so far in the course of the pandemic, are not major sources of infection. Federal Minister for Family Franziska Giffey (SPD) said in Berlin on Friday: “Children are not the cause of the infection.” Therefore, he speaks out against closures nationwide, despite the increase in number. Closing daycare and schools should be the last resort.

The minister refers to the “Corona-Kita Study” carried out since May by the RKI and the German Youth Institute. According to the study, less than one percent of nurseries in Germany had to close partially or fully due to the crown in recent weeks, Giffey says. The number of crown outbreaks reported in around 570,000 daycare centers across the country was in the single-digit range per week. A total of 79 infections were reported in day care centers and after-school centers from the start of the pandemic until October 12.

But neither Giffey nor the federal Minister of Health, Jens Spahn (CDU), want to commit on Friday to a value above which this assessment could change. Looking at the federal and state governments’ hotspot strategy, which foresees incremental measures according to incidence, Spahn says: There is a “very broad consensus” to maintain regular operations as long as possible. It has been shown that children only have a relevant part of the infections from the age of 13. But then the risk of infection adapts to that of adults.