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Corona: University rectors call for a vaccination campaign for students

2021-06-29T00:30:20.170Z


No attendance semester without a vaccination: Rectors of several universities demand special vaccination campaigns for students - because politicians have so far largely ignored them.


Enlarge image

Disinfection utensils before an event in the lecture hall of the University of Hohenheim (in autumn 2020)

Photo: Sebastian Gollnow / dpa

The rector of Heidelberg University, Bernhard Eitel, has shown upset that students have not been given enough consideration in vaccination campaigns.

"While schoolchildren are on the radar, students and universities are largely ignored," said Eitel in an interview with the "Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung": "I don't think that's sufficiently responsible."

He had the impression "that you are relying on the initiative of young people to somehow gain access to a vaccination," and thus relieving yourself of responsibility, said Eitel.

It is now undisputed that the federal and state governments did not have enough focus on the situation of the students.

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The Heidelberg university boss suggested rededicating less busy vaccination centers to vaccination streets especially for students.

The current rules for universities also have to be reconsidered, demanded Eitel.

The limiting factor for teaching in face-to-face seminars is the distance requirement: »If the distance rule of one and a half meters does not apply to the winter semester despite 3G - i.e. vaccinated, tested or recovered - as in restaurants, in local and air traffic or in schools, then there is no return possible for presence. "

Presence only when vaccinated for everyone

The state rectors' conferences of technical colleges and universities in North Rhine-Westphalia had previously urged an immediate vaccination campaign for students.

Lambert T. Koch, Rector of the University of Wuppertal, and Marcus Baumann, Rector of the FH Aachen, write in a joint declaration that this is a “prerequisite” for classroom teaching to take place in the winter semester.

The announcement has weight: Around 750,000 students in North Rhine-Westphalia study around a quarter of all young academics in Germany.

The rectors are now demanding “that all employees and students must have received a binding vaccination offer across the board by the beginning of, at the latest by mid-August”.

Baumann emphasizes that the date was not chosen arbitrarily: If the semester starts at the beginning of October 2021 and full vaccination protection then has to be in place, the first vaccination must be given in the first half of August at the latest.

The state now has to decide how many students can be vaccinated per day: »If you start, for example, at the beginning of July, assuming that up to 60 percent of this group have not yet been vaccinated, you would have to go to August for the remaining four to five weeks on each one More than 15,000 students are vaccinated every working day «, calculate the rectors.

Have you already lost two years?

Should that not succeed, the rules of distance would remain - and they would mean that only a fifth of the students would be able to return to the lecture halls.

The vaccination is also urgently needed because currently more than half of the newly infected are young people.

However, the declaration also makes it clear that the rectors have little confidence in the abilities of politics.

The universities were now expecting "clear backing" for the fact that they would have to teach largely online again in the winter semester in order to protect their employees and students.

The Heidelberg rector Bernhard Eitel also says that the universities now need clarification quickly from the respective state ministries: “Otherwise much more will be destroyed than a few exams.

We are in danger of losing two years of students. "

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Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2021-06-29

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