Corona holidays in all schools and daycare centers - expert warns of "avalanche of infections"

Are politicians taking a radical measure in the fight against the corona virus? Nationwide Corona Holidays are under discussion. But would they really make sense?

• The corona virus * is spreading in Germany.
• In order to slow down the chains of infection, “Corona Holidays” are up for debate for schoolchildren.
• An overview of the federal states that have ordered closures.

Update, 4.10 p.m .: Now that 13 federal states have decided to close schools and daycare centers for the time being ( overview see below ), millions of parents, children and adolescents have to adapt to a completely new situation.

Most countries want to keep schools and day care centers closed until the end of the Easter holidays , i.e. until mid or late April. It can be expected that the rest of the federal states will also join the closures. Other countries around the world have already done the same.

Corona holidays in Germany: Saxony suspends compulsory schooling - schools remain open for childcare

Update, 3:30 p.m .: In contrast to other federal states ( see list below ), Saxony did not immediately decide to completely close schools. Compulsory schooling in the state is suspended from Monday (March 16). The children can stay at home. However, childcare at schools is guaranteed. This should give teachers, students and parents time to prepare for school closings. The exact time of closings is expected to be decided later this week.

Corona virus in Germany: More and more federal states are closing schools - the overview

Update, 11.45 a.m .: Bremen will also close all schools and daycare centers from Monday (March 16). The Senate saw this measure as necessary to slow the further spread of the coronavirus *, the state government said on Friday after a special session.

School closings in the following federal states :

• Bavaria (from March 16)
• Bremen (March 16)
• Berlin from March 17th across the board, partly already from March 16th)
• Lower Saxony (from March 16)
• Saarland (from March 16)
• Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: schools in Rostock and in the district of Ludwigslust-Parchim (from March 16)
• Rhineland-Palatinate (from March 16)
• Schleswig-Holstein (from March 16)
• North Rhine-Westphalia (from March 18 at the latest)
• Baden-Württemberg (from March 17th)
• Hessen (exact time will be announced)
• Thuringia (from March 17th)
• Hamburg (from March 16)
• Saxony (with intermediate step: from March 16, there will be no more classes - but the schools will remain open for childcare)
• Saxony-Anhalt (from March 16)
• Brandenburg (March 18)
  
  The list will be updated further .

Coronavirus in Germany: Virologist with assessment of school closings

Update 10.55 a.m .: According to the virologist Alexander Kekulé , schools and kindergartens across Germany should remain closed in order to curb the spread of the novel corona virus. Nationwide closings are "absolutely no alternative," he said on Friday in the ZDF "Morgenmagazin".

Statistically, each infected child would infect two or three other children. This would trigger an “avalanche of infections” that would be difficult to stop. The reason is the incubation period of the Sars-CoV-2 virus on the one hand, and the time that elapses before the diagnosis is made on the other. That is why Kekulé called for "proactive action" from those responsible. He gives the example of the special leave of up to ten days a year that parents can take when their child is ill.

Corona holidays in Berlin too - but gradually at first

Update, 10.15 a.m .: Berlin plans to gradually close schools and daycare centers starting next week. The closings are scheduled to begin on Monday (March 16) with the upper level centers.

Closed down schools due to the spread of the coronavirus * are also in Lower Saxony. From Monday onwards there will be no lessons.

Corona vacation in all schools and daycare centers - virologist talks about planned closings

Update March 13, 2020, 9 a.m .: Now it is clear : Schools will close in Bavaria, Lower Saxony and Saarland until the end of the Easter holidays *. All kindergartens and daycare centers are also affected.

In his NDR Coronavirus podcast , virologist Christian Drosten changed his mind about school closings on Thursday. In the face of a study from the United States, he changed his perspective. It dealt with a city analysis from the USA on the Spanish flu in 1918 . This has shown that school closings in a package of measures could make sense: "It is extremely useful to combine two or more measures: stopping events and school closings in combination are extremely efficient, especially if you keep going for more than four weeks “ Resulted from this analysis, said Drosten *.

Nevertheless, day-care closings cause him stomach ache because, just as with primary school closures, many employees could also drop out of the health sector because they would have to look after their children at home. "Then we would have done a lot of consequential damage if we closed daycare from one day to the next without any further regulations," warned Drosten in the NDR podcast.

Corona holidays for all German students: decisions about school closings will be made on Friday

Update from 8:52 p.m .: The federal and state governments have been controversial about a possible nationwide closure of schools in Germany due to the rapid spread of the corona virus . The German press agency learned this from government circles. On Thursday evening there was still no result in the discussions between the federal government and the prime ministers of the federal states. Other topics are the supply of the population and further cancellations of events, it said.

Update from 19:38 : Education Minister Anja Karliczek (CDU) said on Wednesday that she currently considered school closings to be "not displayed" - and angered Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) . He now delivered a return carriage in the picture : “That was an unfortunate statement from the minister. Apart from their not absolute responsibility, I am surprised by their assessment - especially since there are already entire cities that close kindergartens and schools, ”he told the newspaper.

Söder warned not to evaluate each other, the report said, and called for consideration for the different situations from region to region. "We have a different situation in Bavaria with the border to Austria and the proximity to Italy than other countries." Söder thought it possible that schools and kindergartens in Bavaria would soon be closed across the board.

Corona holidays for all German students: decisions about school closings will be made on Friday

Update 7:19 p.m .: Hessen releases its high school graduates from class because of the corona pandemic. The precautionary measure will apply from next Monday (March 16) to the beginning of the Easter vacation (April 6), as a spokesman for the Ministry of Culture said on Thursday. The written Abitur exams will begin in Hesse next Thursday (March 19). The high school graduates should only enter the school.

Update 6:20 p.m .: The Coronavirus Crisis Unit in Lower Saxony recommends that all schools in the state be closed from Monday. The Easter vacation should start early. The Lower Saxony political journal Rundblick reports that the state government is consulting and wants to announce a decision on Friday.

Covid-19: Are there school closings across Germany? Söder attacks Federal Minister

Update 5.44 p.m .: There are still no plans to close schools across Germany in the fight against the corona virus . However, they are not off the table. The Conference of Ministers of Education does not rule out such a measure. This was said by the chair, the Rhineland-Palatinate Minister of Education Stefanie Hubig (SPD), after consulting with her colleagues from the other federal states in Berlin.

Update 3:55 p.m .: The Free State of Bavaria seems to be going ahead with the decision of the comprehensive school closings. As the Munich Merkur has learned, Prime Minister Söder wants to tell on Friday how things are going to continue in the schools. Early Easter holidays, emergency care at schools and a plan for digital distance learning are now being advised by the Bavarian state government.

Söder criticized it as "surprising" that Federal Education Minister Anja Karliczek had previously opposed general school closures. Karliczek had said: "Currently, comprehensive school closures are not yet indicated." However, the situation had to be reassessed every day.

Coronavirus: teachers' association calls for school closings across Germany

Munich - In view of the spread of corona virus in Germany, more and more schools are temporarily closing. The children should stay at home so as not to infect each other. At the beginning of March, the virologist Professor Alexander Kekulé had even asked for 14-day "corona holidays" at school and daycare centers.

If we now prescribe #Corona holidays for schools, day-care centers and major events for 14 days, we can significantly reduce the number of future illnesses (and deaths). Italy and Japan understood that. Does BM Spahn think the Germans are immune to #Coronavirus?

One thing is clear: there is great uncertainty in schools. The President of the Teachers' Association , Heinz-Peter Meidinger, demands from the Conference of Ministers of Education a uniform emergency plan that should apply to all schools: "There is currently a great deal of uncertainty because schools in the different federal states react very differently to the situation."

The Association of German Secondary School Teachers * asked for nationwide school closings on Thursday for at least one week. "This period can be extended weekly as required and in coordination with the health authorities of the federal states and regions," said Federal Chairman Jürgen Böhm. In Austria, schools are closed until Easter. Halle (Saale) is also the first major German city to close all daycare centers and schools.

So would nationwide "Corona Holidays" be the solution? Experts express considerable doubts about such a measure. Two arguments speak against it.

Corona school closings across Germany could harm the economy and the health system

According to the statements, there is a problem in particular with primary school children that the children cannot remain at home unattended for whole days. This, in turn, could mean that, in case of doubt, the parents have to stay at home themselves and are accordingly absent from the workplace. Among them are many who work in the health sector and would then be missing in this epidemic period, among other things, virologist Ulrike Protzer from the Technical University of Munich has to consider when asked for a newsreel.

Even those who work in the private sector and have to stay at home due to the lack of childcare options would also be absent from the office or the factory. The economy is already suffering badly from the coronavirus pandemic, stock markets are crashing and a global recession is feared.

Hundreds of thousands of workers would be an additional burden in the emerging Corona economic crisis. Only a minority could stay on duty through home office. Compared to the Tagesschau , the spokesman for the board of the German Society for Hospital Hygiene (DGKH), Peter Walger, draws attention to this economic problem.

Coronavirus: Students are not a special risk group - but their grandparents are

All previous studies show that children can get the coronavirus, but they can fight off this infection better. They hardly develop any symptoms * and are therefore not a particularly high- risk group . Very different from another population group: seniors. But when schools close now, many children of working parents will be looked after by their grandparents.

Christian Drosten , director of the Institute of Virology at the Charité, called on Monday in his NDR podcast, in particular, to protect pensioners from the corona virus. The families would have to find individual solutions and see the grandparents as an “area worth protecting” . Nationwide corona vacations at schools could paradoxically have the opposite effect if there is more contact between students who may already be infected and their grandparents, who may be unnoticed. The spread of the coronavirus in this risk group could even be accelerated by such a measure.

According to the Federal Statistical Office - including vocational schools - there are around 43,000 schools in Germany with around eleven million students and 820,000 teachers.

The corona virus keeps the whole world in suspense. Italy is in a state of emergency. But in the city of Siena, people defy the virus in a beautiful way.

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* Merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen-Digital editors network

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