Corona crisis: Experts fear that asylum seekers' homes will become hotspots

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"Caos" preprogrammed?

A refugee home in Berlin (archive photo from 2017)

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Robert Schlesinger / picture alliance

When Ruhul Amin Khan fled Bangladesh to Germany earlier this year, he hoped to get to a safe country.

Then came Corona - and the great uncertainty.

The 34-year-old has been staying in two different asylum shelters since March, and there have been two outbreaks of Covid-19. 

First he had to be quarantined in the arrival and distribution center on Maria-Probst-Straße in Munich.

"For two weeks the four of us were in a small room," said Ruhul on the phone, "we knew it was about Corona, but nothing more."

Security forces would have put food in front of the door.

Three refugees tested positive at the anchor center, and they and their roommates were isolated.

The remaining 450 residents were allowed to move around freely and use the communal canteen and bathrooms.

Two months later, Khan came to the Ermekeil barracks, an initial reception facility in Bonn.

And here, too, he experienced a new corona outbreak.

In a few days, more than 50 people were infected and again he had to be quarantined.

He was "locked up" by the home administration, says Khan.

At least he has been spared a corona infection so far.

But the episodes from Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia show: Asylum shelters can quickly become a source of danger in Corona times.

And so far politicians have not found any answers on how to deal with them appropriately.

While the life of many citizens in the corona crisis is characterized by the requirement to wear a mask, curfew, distance rules and contact restrictions, the rule for refugee homes is usually simple: fence and go.

More than seven months after the start of the pandemic, there is no nationwide uniform concept for the corona protection of refugees.

The Ministry of the Interior asked the federal states in March to test newly arriving asylum seekers for the corona virus regardless of suspicion.

Hygiene rules and instructions are written in several languages ​​nationwide.

However, there are no standards for asylum accommodation.

Asylum seekers appear - if at all - only as a side note in the countries' pandemic plans.

The asylum home is becoming a hotspot

Now the problem is that the federal government had asked the states in recent years to accommodate arriving asylum seekers in large facilities - the so-called anchor centers.

The stay there can last for months.

Then the residents are distributed to the federal states according to a quota key.

There they have the chance to find accommodation in apartments.

In many anchor centers, the Corona regulations can hardly be complied with: People who do not belong to the same family are accommodated in narrow rooms, dozens of people live on one floor, share communal kitchens and toilets.

"Accommodation in collective accommodation is an immense problem in times of Corona," says health scientist Kayvan Bozorgmehr from Bielefeld University.

"Evaluations show that the places next to old people's homes or the work environment lead to the biggest outbreaks."

In May, Bozorgmehr, together with scientists from the Public Health Competence Network, evaluated COVID-19 corona infection data from 42 reception facilities and shared accommodation for refugees.

The result of the study: In the facilities concerned, a total of 1769 people out of 9785 refugees tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.

This corresponds to a share of 18 percent - and illustrates the dimensions of the problem.

Small states prevail in dealing with refugees

Health researcher Bozorgmehr had hoped his study could help to alert politicians.

But apart from a few measures such as tests for newcomers or the restricted use of common rooms, much is still the same.

Bozorgmore does not see any fundamental changes.

"The federal states are sticking to collective accommodation, and the occupancy numbers would now have to be massively thinned out to prevent new mass infections."

"The occupancy numbers have to be massively thinned out in order to prevent new mass infections."

Health doctor Kayvan Bozorgmore

As in many other Corona questions, there is small-scale government when dealing with refugees.

The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf) coordinates asylum applications nationwide - but the accommodation and medical care of the people is the responsibility of the federal states.

The handling of the coronavirus in affected facilities looks correspondingly different and sometimes chaotic.

In some places only a few contact persons are isolated, in others the authorities are quarantining hundreds of people.

In a refugee accommodation in Suhl, Thuringia, riots broke out in spring after more than 500 people were not allowed to leave the premises due to corona quarantine.

The police came with water cannons.

In Bremen, the Senate had to ensure order after a mass infection with a clearance decree.

If a resident falls ill, there is a good chance that the coronavirus will spread unhindered.

The refugee shelters are mostly "socially isolated", says researcher Bozorgmehr.

Although this prevents them - unlike pubs, churches or private parties - from becoming the "drivers of the pandemic", it makes it all the more dangerous and stressful for the refugees housed in this way.

An outbreak in a refugee home can also have massive consequences for the seven-day incidence value in a district.

It is unclear how many refugees in Germany have been infected with the coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic.

Not all cases are listed separately, the Federal Ministry of the Interior cannot provide any data on request.

In a survey up to mid-August, the RKI counted the locations in Germany at which mass outbreaks occurred - i.e. cases in which one person infected several other people in a short time.

Out of a total of almost 8,000 such cases, with 199 outbreaks, asylum shelters ranked well behind private apartments (3902), nursing homes (709) and offices (412).

Collective quarantines could increase

Asylum associations fear that the autumn and winter seasons will now be an acid test for the homes - and that politicians have not used the time to prepare for it.

The migration association Pro Asyl has been demanding since the beginning of the pandemic that the practice be adapted to the reality of the Corona: out of the mass accommodation, into hotels and vacant apartments.

So far, politicians have not taken up the proposals, "that's the sad thing about the current situation," says Wiebke Judith, legal policy advisor at Pro Asyl.

"Our demands have not changed since the beginning of the pandemic."

Judith fears that the collective quarantines will increase again with the increasing numbers, as is currently the case in Dresden.

Then, on the one hand, the risk of infection in the locked homes would increase, and on the other, the burden for the refugees would increase.

"The countries did not take the time to find differentiated solutions."

Pro asylum spokeswoman Wiebke Judith

At the integration summit last Monday, Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) also warned that the corona crisis was primarily affecting the weakest.

Due to the restrictions, it is not so easy for immigrants to gain a foothold, for example because counseling and language courses are temporarily not held in face-to-face format.

In this way, life in sealed-off homes becomes a psychological stress test: there are no caregivers and pastors due to the restricted contact, many residents only understand the measures imprecisely due to language barriers.

"In the summer, the federal states didn't take the time to find differentiated solutions," says Judith.

The home management would now face the same problems as in the spring.

Ruhul Amin Khan from Bangladesh has now found a solution for himself.

He no longer wants to rely on the help of the municipalities.

"The accommodations I've been to are perfect places for infection," he says.

Too unsanitary, too tight - functioning corona management is impossible in the homes, says Khan.

He himself had therefore been staying with a friend privately for a few weeks.

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