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Student with mask (symbol picture): RKI presents analysis of schools
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Arne Dedert / dpa
The role of Germany's schools in the infection process has been highly controversial for months.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has now investigated the matter and has come to the conclusion that schoolchildren »tend not to play a greater role as an 'engine'«, but that they too have transmission and outbreaks must be prevented .
The RKI wrote this in an online publication published on Thursday and referred to an analysis of reporting data and studies.
School breakouts are, according to the paper, closely related to the incidence, i.e. the number of cases per 100,000 inhabitants, in the entire population.
In areas with low infection rates, the likelihood of infection in schools is lower than in hotspots.
Another result: Teachers played "perhaps a more important role" than students in the spread of the pandemic, according to the RKI.
"Outbreaks that occur are usually small in the observed period and about half are limited to the cohorts or classes," the scientists found.
Larger outbreaks - in one case with 55 cases - do occur, but are "a rare occurrence overall."
According to the RKI, teachers have the highest relative risk of infection
The main focus of the investigation was on corona outbreaks, which were reported to the RKI between the beginning of August and mid-December, i.e. between the end of the summer holidays in the first federal states and the start of the tightened nationwide shutdown.
The scientists describe a further linear increase in school breakouts as conspicuous, even after the start of the shutdown light in autumn 2020. This was mainly due to the younger age groups.
In principle, however, all age groups are represented in school breakouts.
Teachers would have the highest relative risk of becoming infected.
During the RKI investigation, it should be noted that the authors primarily look at reporting data based on laboratory-confirmed corona cases.
They themselves point to a number of associated limitations: Primary school students in particular often show no symptoms or the onset of the disease is difficult to determine.
It is possible that a "larger number" of asymptomatic infected people are not recorded and the size of outbreaks is underestimated.
On the basis of a large Austrian study, however, it could be assumed "that this error is probably not substantially large".
"New challenges from mutants"
According to the authors, the new Corona variants, in particular the mutant B.1.1.7 discovered in Great Britain, represent “new challenges”.
The easier transferability seems to apply to all age groups.
"If more contagious variants spread, this could mean that schools could make a greater contribution to the infection process."
For weeks, an increase in the proportion of the mutant B.1.1.7 in the positive corona samples in Germany has been observed.
The RKI derives the following recommendations from its findings:
When it comes to school openings, the findings on mutants should be taken into account.
School closings and reopenings should definitely be placed in the context of the overall incidence in the region.
In the case of gradual openings, the lower grades should come back to face-to-face classes first.
For older students, according to the experts, models such as alternating lessons are a good option.
The question of possible corona outbreaks in schools is currently particularly explosive.
On Monday, ten federal states reopened their schools for at least some classes and sometimes with alternating lessons after weeks of closings - often linked to the argument that schools are "not the drivers of the pandemic".
Critics, on the other hand, consider the openings to be too risky, especially as they perceive the protective measures in some schools to be inadequate.
At the beginning of February, the Berlin virologist Christian Drosten once again expressed himself in an NDR podcast on the question of whether children or schools were the drivers of the pandemic.
He appealed to "say goodbye to this stupid idea" that some group was the special driver of what was happening.
"We all make the same contribution to this problem," said the Charité expert.
The comparison between the pandemic, in which everyone is susceptible to the new virus, with the flu wave limps.
In the case of influenza, children are actually considered to be the drivers of contagion.
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