The summer holidays are over in many places in Germany.
It's not the corona pandemic, the fourth wave is underway.
However, most of the students return to their classrooms.
Too much material was missed, it is too important that everyone learns together again, everyone can see each other again.
However, a recent case report from the United States shows what happens when the delta variant of the coronavirus encounters a completely unvaccinated class.
In a California elementary school, an unvaccinated teacher came to work for two days despite symptoms.
He felt limp, his nose was blocked.
Consequences of an allergic reaction, he thought, according to a CDC report.
When there was a cough, fever and headache, the teacher stayed at home and had himself tested for the corona virus.
The result: positive.
In the days that followed, almost the entire school was examined. In the teacher's class, twelve out of 24 children were infected, write the US authorities. Those who sat in the first two rows and therefore particularly close to the teacher's desk were particularly at risk. Eight out of ten students there were infected. In the three other rows, four out of 14 children were affected, as can be seen from the following graphic. There was only one child at each table.
In the end, half the class became infected, although the door and the two windows were open and an air filter was installed in front of the blackboard.
However, contrary to what was prescribed, the teacher had occasionally read aloud to the class without a mask.
The children were all too young to be vaccinated.
According to discussions with their parents, however, the students largely adhered to the rule of wearing masks indoors and keeping their distance.
Another outbreak in the neighboring class
The outbreak was not limited to just one class. There were also infections in a neighboring class. Six out of 18 children were infected there. In this group too, everyone was still too young to be vaccinated. The authorities could not reconstruct how exactly the virus got from one group to the other. Between the two classrooms was an inner courtyard with tables that were locked. However, research into the virus suggests the outbreaks are related. There were also eight secondary cases among parents and siblings, three of them in fully vaccinated adults.
Of the total of 27 infected people in the end, 22 developed symptoms.
The most common were fever, headache, cough, and sore throat.
The vaccinated adults also complained of complaints.
The good thing: none of those affected became so seriously ill that he or she had to be hospitalized.
The case illustrates how quickly the delta variant can spread among unvaccinated people.
Against this background, pragmatic approaches such as the Berlin decision to only send children and adolescents with a positive PCR test to quarantine - and apart from the closest family members, no longer to identify any contact persons.
According to US authorities, the teacher who caused the outbreak was one of only two unvaccinated teachers in the entire school.
Until the end it was not clear where the person was infected.
In addition to the goal of vaccinating all eligible people, it is extremely important for school safety to strictly adhere to the corona rules, write the US authorities.
In addition to airing and regular tests, this includes wearing masks and appealing to stay at home if symptoms occur.
Even if you think: your nose is just blocked.
That won't be Corona.
irb
