Enlarge image
Daycare centers and schools have to close again and again due to the pandemic (symbol image)
Photo: Hauke-Christian Dittrich / dpa
Children and adolescents who have become infected with the coronavirus only need to be treated in hospital in Germany in rare cases: 1.2 percent of those under 20 years of age have been affected by Covid-19 since the pandemic began.
68 children and adolescents have received intensive medical care so far because of Covid-19.
The Robert Koch Institute is aware of eleven confirmed deaths of young people under the age of 18 in connection with the virus.
This emerges from a previously unpublished small request from several FDP members of the Bundestag to the federal government, which SPIEGEL has received.
The numbers represent the status as of April 9, 2021.
"Rigidity of the Federal Government"?
With their question, the MEPs would like to point out that children and young people may suffer disproportionately from the measures taken to combat pandemics, although in the vast majority of cases they themselves do not become seriously ill.
If the incidence value exceeds 200, schools and daycare centers are to remain closed in the future, according to Chancellor Angela Merkel in the “fourth civil protection law”.
The government emphasizes again and again that children and young people are given "highest priority".
The opposition sees it differently.
"Educational opportunities and health well-being of the youngest fall victim to the stubbornness of the federal government once again," says MP Katrin Helling-Plahr (FDP).
A differentiation between controllable cluster outbreaks and diffuse outbreaks is no longer possible.
more on the subject
Criticism of planned corona measures: Wieler and Spahn call for faster school emergency brakes
Generation Corona in Germany: What the pandemic is doing to our children - and what helps them
Mental stress: Almost every third child shows psychological problems during the corona crisis
There is also a lack of “pragmatic solutions”.
For example, the federal government's free citizen tests could be expanded to include schools.
"Every additional test that is taken offers a gain in safety and more prospects for face-to-face teaching," says Helling-Plahr.
However, the Federal Ministry of Health rejected this proposal at the beginning of March.
The reason: Tests in connection with the school operation fell exclusively into the competence area of the federal states.
Worries, fears, depression
There are numerous studies that show how much children and young people suffer from not being able to go to school or daycare and not being allowed to see friends.
In mid-February, the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) published the results of the second survey of the so-called “COPSY” study (“Corona and Psyche”), which sheds light on the well-being of children and adolescents in the pandemic.
According to this, almost one in three children one year after the start of the pandemic suffered from psychological abnormalities such as worries and fears, but also from depressive symptoms and psychosomatic complaints such as headaches or abdominal pain.
Young people with a migration background or from less affluent families were particularly affected.