Bremen Higher Administrative Court lifts the mask requirement for primary school students

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Schoolchildren with everyday masks (symbol): explanations »too indefinite«

Photo: Dirk Kittelberger / imago images / Westend61

The Bremen Higher Administrative Court (OVG) has temporarily lifted the mask requirement for primary school students in the state.

In the proceedings, parents had appealed against the obligation to wear a mouth and nose cover for elementary school children.

This should apply in the Hanseatic city from an incidence value of 100.

Due to unclear wording, the OVG has temporarily suspended the mask requirement, as stated in a press release from the court.

The court ruled that the statements on the conditions under which the mask requirement applies were "too vague".

The mask requirement in the municipality of Bremen applies if the incidence value of 100 is exceeded and “and this cannot be attributed to one or more outbreaks outside of schools”.

But "primary school students and their parents cannot determine when this requirement has been met."

In principle, however, the mask requirement for primary school children is suitable to reduce and control the infection rate in schools.

The obligation to wear everyday masks does not interfere with the right to physical integrity.

In the past week, several applications against the mask requirement had caused a stir.

In Weimar, a family judge had lifted the mask requirement by means of an injunction.

The decision had caused great astonishment.

In Hanover, the district court had received more than a hundred applications.

Almost all of them referred to the decision of the family judge in Weimar.

Despite the high number of written pleadings, no proceedings were initiated in Hanover because of endangering the welfare of the child, according to the court's statement.

According to the common view of all family judges there, there are "no sufficient indications of a specific risk to the child's welfare" through measures to contain pandemic in schools.

The Weimar Administrative Court confirmed the mask requirement on Tuesday.

kha / AFP