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Elementary school children in Kiel
Photo: Gregor Fischer / picture alliance / dpa
The Federal Environment Agency (UBA) has changed its assessment of mobile air filter devices in schools.
"Of course, mobile air filters help against viruses - if they are tested devices and they are set up correctly in the classroom," said Heinz-Jörn Moriske, managing director of the UBA's indoor air hygiene commission, the "Handelsblatt".
"The installation and setting up should be done by experts," added Moriske.
"It doesn't make sense for parents to buy untested devices in hardware stores and distribute them randomly around the room." The UBA expert added that mobile air purifiers could filter out viruses or deactivate them, but they didn't help against mold or moisture in the classroom.
"That means they do not improve the general air quality and would in principle be superfluous after the pandemic or only be useful again in the next pandemic."
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In a handout for schools in autumn 2020, the office wrote about mobile air filters that they are not suitable as a substitute, "but as a supplement to active ventilation, as they do not exchange room air for outside air".
Moriske rejected the claim in the "Handelsblatt" that the UBA had advised against the use of mobile air filters.
New assessment
That sounded different on the UBA website in February 2021.
"Mobile air purification devices promise to reduce virus-containing particles indoors," it says.
And further: "According to the current state of knowledge, it is uncertain whether the reductions are sufficient to avert the risk of infection in densely populated classrooms."
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Air filter in the classroom of a school in Stadtbergen, Bavaria
Photo: Karl-Josef Hildenbrand / dpa
The teachers' portal “News4teachers” feels “duped” in view of the much more positive assessment of mobile devices and speaks of an “air filter scandal”.
The public has been deceived for almost a year that mobile air filters in daycare centers and schools could have protected against corona infections.
The Federal Environment Agency has so far left a request from SPIEGEL on Thursday morning unanswered.
Several ministries of culture had so far held back on the purchase of air filter systems for school classes, citing the older UBA assessment - including Baden-Württemberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia.
A few days ago the Ministry of Culture in Erfurt said: "The recommendations of the Federal Environment Agency can be summarized as follows: The best air purifier is the open window."
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Into the summer vacation without a plan: Fierce dispute over ventilation devices for schools
The dispute over air purifiers is boiling up again with a view to the coming school year.
Education unions, teachers' associations and politicians are calling for summer time to be used to invest in air filter systems so that schools do not have to be closed again.
In the discussion, however, a lot gets mixed up: The benefit of permanently installed air purification systems, which are more complex to install, is not disputed. In the case of mobile devices, the situation is not that clear. In a guideline for school operation under corona conditions, medical associations, the Robert Koch Institute, education and child protection associations had so far neither made a clear recommendation for nor against.
Hamburg's school senator Ties Rabe (SPD) described the massive installation of the stationary filters as eyewash on Thursday: “To install such stationary systems, all around 500,000 classrooms and classrooms would have to be extensively converted - including wall openings, plastering and masonry work and the installation of Electrical and piping systems. ”Even with the greatest exertion, that would take several years, said Rabe.
"Have a really great summer"
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has meanwhile wished the schoolchildren in Germany a nice summer vacation.
"Have a really great summer," said Steinmeier in a short video message published on Thursday.
For the time after the long vacation, he would then like to wish "a new school year as normal as possible".
Steinmeier said that the school year has already ended in some federal states and is about to end in other federal states was not an easy one, neither for the students, nor for the parents or the teachers.
"A big thank you for your patience and for giving up some things and helping us to win the fight against Corona," said the Federal President to the children and young people.
him / dpa / AFP