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"The Federal Government has no knowledge of this": Kita-Fenster in Kassel (archive picture)
Photo: Uwe Zucchi / dpa
Quarantine instructions for minors in daycare centers and schools are often experienced as confusing: Sometimes people sitting next to the infected have to stay at home, sometimes not;
Sometimes siblings are tested, sometimes the health authorities do without it.
The procedure is perceived by the families concerned as "intransparent, confusing and sometimes incomprehensible," writes the FDP parliamentary group in a small inquiry to the federal government and wants to know which coordinated strategy between the federal and state governments is behind it.
The answer: at least not a comprehensive one.
This emerges from the statement by the federal government, which SPIEGEL has received.
According to this, the government is "in constant exchange with all actors who are involved in overcoming the corona pandemic."
But you have no figures on how many families are affected by one or more children in quarantine.
"Data, but not a strategy"
According to the answer, there are only concrete figures for the daycare sector: In mid-November, not even every 20th facility (4.35 percent) had one or more groups closed.
Whether these closings were due to an order from the health department or for other reasons is not asked.
A corresponding statement is therefore not possible, and there is also no knowledge about the specific number of daycare children in quarantine at home.
Only the number of complete closings of daycare centers due to corona infections is known, it was 1.98 percent.
However, there are no data on the quarantine of entire schools or individual classes that are reliable from an infection-medically point of view.
"The available data is incomplete, there is no uniform procedure for daycare and school children," says Katrin Helling-Plahr, who sits on the Bundestag's health committee for the FDP: "There is data on day-care centers, but no strategy.
There is no data on schools, but there is a strategy.
Anyone who wants to understand that. ”Instead of a uniform procedure for minors, there is“ a patchwork of studies and reporting systems, ”says Helling-Plahr.
The FDP politician also criticizes the lack of planning security for parents.
It is an indictment that the federal government, in its answer to the small question, does not take a clear position on a claim for compensation in the event of daycare closings - for example, if parents cannot go to work because the daycare is closed.
The answer to the small question only said: "Whether working in the home office can be reconciled with looking after children depends on the one hand on the employer and on the other hand on the individual conditions of the families and the respective domesticities." A general statement on this is "neither desirable nor affordable in view of the very different ages and stages of development of the children to be looked after".
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