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Education Minister Eisenmann would like to use rapid antigen tests in schools and daycare centers in the future, to protect students and employees. The Minister of Social Affairs does not think much about the idea.
According to the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Baden-Württemberg state government has so far only used so-called PCR tests in schools and kindergartens. Culture Minister Susanne Eisenmann (CDU) has now campaigned to use rapid antigen tests there to contain future corona infections. Eisenmann told the “Heilbronner Voice” and “Mannheimer Morgen” (Saturday) that they find the use of rapid antigen tests useful “because they offer the ability to test more people in less time and detect infections more quickly.”
Detect infected people faster
With rapid tests, the result should be available in a few minutes; With PCR tests, results are usually only available after a day or two. With rapid antigen testing, “affected facilities or groups could be quickly screened, even infected people without significant symptoms could be quickly identified and isolated, and our children, adolescents and employees could be protected from the spread of the virus,” he said. Eisenmann to the newspapers.
The land should largely bear the costs
Therefore, the Minister of Education wants to get rapid tests, which unlike PCR tests are considered more prone to errors, are included in the state’s testing strategy, which should then “largely take over” costs of these. In Baden-Württemberg, teachers and employees of schools, kindergartens and kindergartens could take the test twice for free until the end of the autumn holidays, even without symptoms. Minister Eisenmann would like to extend this free offer until the end of November and increase it to three tests, Social Minister Manfred Lucha (Greens) has so far refused.
Fight: evidence is not available indefinitely
Social Affairs Minister Lucha also spoke out against his cabinet colleague’s suggestion on Saturday to extend rapid tests to schools and kindergartens: “In this extremely tense situation, it is certainly not the time to go ahead with new demands, but to monitor the general situation, “he said. Fight. The top priority now is clearly to filter out the most important sources of infection and protect particularly vulnerable groups. These are residents of nursing homes and the elderly, hospitals and health personnel. “This is also clear from the decision of the Prime Minister’s Conference this week,” Lucha said. In their meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) last Wednesday, the federal states agreed that rapid corona tests should be used in hospitals, nursing homes, facilities for the elderly and the disabled in the future.
The Minister of Social Struggle also said that, according to clear criteria of infection focus, of course other groups such as schools and nurseries would also be considered. There was agreement that the tests, which were not available indefinitely, of course, would be used first where people were most at risk. The country soon ordered five million rapid tests in a first tranche, to be able to react quickly in the event of large outbreaks or bottlenecks in delivery. However, as a general rule, the institutions commissioned rapid tests directly from the pharmaceutical trade or manufacturers, according to the minister.
