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Closed school in Bavarian Germering (in February 2021)
Photo: Frank Hoermann / Sven Simon / IMAGO
In retrospect, Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) considers the longer closure of schools and daycare centers in the corona pandemic to be unnecessary.
"Keeping it closed for so long" was "a criticism" of the measures in retrospect, he said in the ARD "Morgenmagazin".
At the same time, Lauterbach pointed out that this corresponded to the recommendations of experts at the time: "So the level of knowledge was simply not good enough." In Germany, many companies had been "relatively spared" and could have continued to work normally, said Lauterbach.
At the same time, "the children and the schools got into it very hard".
Different countries, different priorities
In retrospect, the assumption that there were many infections in schools and daycare centers "did not prove to be correct in this form," said the Minister of Health.
Other countries would have done this "somewhat differently" and set "different priorities".
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However, he generally sees a request for “forgiveness” as “difficult” in the subsequent assessment of corona measures, Lauterbach added, referring to an earlier statement by his predecessor Jens Spahn (CDU).
Spahn had said during the pandemic that after the crisis there would be a lot to forgive each other.
"The level of knowledge was often not really good enough," said Lauterbach.
This is something different than if things had been done wrong on purpose against better knowledge.
him/AFP