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Friday, November 13, 2020
Austria is also in a second crown wave. The role schools play in spreading the virus is hotly debated. The first results of a large study show that there are fewer than previously assumed.
Amid the simmering discussion in Germany about school closings again during the Corona crisis, the first results of a large-scale “gargle test” study in educational institutions have been presented in Austria. According to this, there are relatively few infections in schools; Students and teachers are affected equally.
The representative study aims to continuously determine the frequency of active corona infections in students and teachers from 243 schools across Austria using gurgling tests and thus also to gain new insights on the number of unreported cases. During the school year, randomly selected students and teachers are tested every three to five weeks using a gargle test.
In the period from September 28 to October 22, 40 out of around 10,000 participants were positive, as announced by the Ministry of Education and the four participating universities. None of the infected people showed any symptoms at the time of the test and therefore normally the test would not have been done. “This is the first time that we have data on the number of unreported cases of infections in schools,” the scientific coordinator of the study, microbiologist Michael Wagner of the University of Vienna, told the APA news agency.
De facto, there are no differences between students with a prevalence of 0.37 percent and teachers (0.57 percent), the researchers said. The difference that has occurred is too small to be significant.
A nice alternative
The so-called “gargle test” is an alternative to the unpleasant mouth, nose, and throat swab. The only difference between the two tests is the sampling. It should be gargled with a special saline solution for several seconds and then spit into a test tube, which is easy even for children. Throat particles that become trapped in the solution are examined for viruses using the standard PCR test method.
However, there are clear differences with respect to the social structure in schools. According to the researchers, the risk of infection in educational institutions with many children from socially disadvantaged families was 3.6 times higher than in schools with less socially disadvantaged children.
Like almost all European countries, Austria is experiencing a rapid increase in crown numbers. In view of development, among other things, it is debated whether schools should be closed.
