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How daycare centers in Bavaria want to implement the compulsory corona test

2021-12-21T14:54:41.879Z


In Bavaria, parents should soon test their children three times a week so that the little ones can go to daycare. The educators have to check the evidence - and are above all dependent on trust.


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No care without proof: child with corona test (symbol photo)

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via www.imago-images.de / IlluPics / IMAGO

Peggy Tschung from the St. Vinzentius Central Association in Munich has prepared DIN A-5 slips.

On these, parents should write down when their child was tested for the coronavirus - and by whom.

The parents should hand in the note three times a week when they bring the child to care.

This is Tschung's plan to implement the compulsory testing for daycare children, which will apply in Bavaria from January 10th.

Tschung is the educational director for four facilities with more than 400 children.

Many parents are not even aware of the new regulation.

She had just pointed this out again in an email to everyone.

"I think we'll have to send children away on the first day because their parents didn't think about it," Tschung told SPIEGEL.

Federal Minister of Family Affairs calls for good test concepts

It is the declared will of the governments to keep schools and daycare centers open despite the high number of infections.

A good test concept is needed for this, as the new Federal Family Minister Anne Spiegel (Greens) told RTL and n-tv on Tuesday.

"We must do everything we can to protect children in this pandemic as best as possible," emphasized the minister.

However, school and daycare closings should only be the very last way.

Before this happens, restrictions in other areas make more sense.

However, ways must also be looked for "how we can improve the situation in the daycare centers - to protect the children".

A test concept has long been in place at schools in Bavaria, but in the fourth corona wave in Munich it partially reached its limits.

The Ministry of Social Affairs suggests two ways of providing evidence of compulsory testing in daycare centers. The approximately 450 urban day-care centers in Munich can also choose from one of the variants, explains the state capital's education department: Either the parents bring the test cassette with the negative result to the daycare center or they show a printed form on which they can take the test with the date and confirm signature.

The Association of Catholic Day-Care Centers in Bavaria, which represents the interests of more than 2,700 crèches, kindergartens, after-school care centers and children's homes, welcomes the obligation to testify in principle: "This is at least a step in the right direction," says managing director Maria Magdalena Hellfritsch. However, the association would have preferred to see comprehensive PCR pool tests such as those carried out in primary schools. He has been campaigning for this since early summer. That is the "safest option," Hellfritsch told SPIEGEL.

The municipal institutions in Munich also assume that the additional bureaucratic effort is »affordable«.

"It is good and important that the tests are carried out in the home environment by caregivers and not in the often stressful childcare situation," says the spokesman for the education department.

But that can also be a problem.

Because the system relies on trust.

The educators cannot check whether the parents actually carried out the tests.

Peggy Tschung knows from her facilities that there are families who are against the tests.

So far, parents in Bavaria - as in other federal states - have been able to voluntarily test their daycare children at home without providing proof. For this purpose, the parents can issue authorization certificates in the daycare centers, for which they can get free tests in the pharmacies. Not all take up the offer. It is said of the municipal daycare centers in Munich that the tests are "used by the majority of parents".

In the children's homes that Tschung runs, participation fluctuates: "At one location around two-thirds collect the authorization certificates, at others it is more." spoken and given them a certificate of entitlement as a precaution. Nonetheless, Tschung assumes that not all families will comply with the mandatory test: »Parents will hand in the slip of paper and claim: We took the test! Then the child can stay. "

In a December 15 newsletter, the Ministry of Social Affairs suggested that if there was any doubt that the child had actually been tested, they could ask for separate evidence.

One possibility was mentioned that "the next time the parents document the test by means of a video".

The ministry withdrew from this proposal on Monday.

The test verification requirement should be "practicable and unbureaucratic," it says.

"We therefore currently do not consider separate evidence to be required in the introductory phase of the test documentation requirement if there are any doubts about the parents' declaration."

With material from AFP

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2021-12-21

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