How high is the risk of infection in the classroom?
A query at German children's clinics shows that there is not a high number of unreported cases in the number of infections among children.
Pediatricians use this as an argument to keep schools open.
According to data collected from more than 100 children's clinics across Germany, the risk of infection for children in daycare and school is comparatively low.
Of 116,000 tests, only 612 were positive.
Pediatricians advocate keeping schools as open as possible over the winter.
Munich
- Tomorrow the Prime Ministers and the Chancellor want to tie down the winter timetable for the pandemic.
An important point here: How will the schools continue?
We are talking about class divisions in the higher grades in regions with still high numbers of infections.
But the question of how high the risk of infection actually is in school remains controversial.
With a collection of data, the directors of more than 100 children's clinics throughout Germany are now providing an argument for keeping schools open.
Under the leadership of the St. Hedwig University Clinic in Regensburg, data from a total of 116,000 children who had gone to a children's clinic from May to November 18 and were routinely tested for the coronavirus were evaluated.
The result of the query: Only 0.53 percent of the tests were positive.
Data from children between 0 and 18 years of age were evaluated, including suspected corona cases, but mostly patients without symptoms - for example children who had to be treated after a fall.
The doctors rate the results of their query as a clear sign that the number of unreported children infected with Sars-Cov-2 is significantly lower than is often assumed.
Pediatrician concludes: Schools are not the main factor in the spread of Sars-Cov-2.
Of the 612 children who tested positive from the clinics, according to Dr.
Michael Kabesch from the University Children's Hospital in Regensburg only thought eight of them were infected at school.
In the vast majority of cases, the infection was to be found among friends and acquaintances.
Prof. Johannes Hübner, chairman of the German Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases and the Hauner Children's Hospital in Munich, says that it looks very much that younger children in particular are not so easily infected with the virus - among other things because they have a stronger immune system or have already formed antibodies partly due to previous illnesses.
His conclusion: "Schools are not the main factor in the spread of Sars-Cov-2." Rather, the virus spills over to schools when the numbers in the general population increase.
For Hübner it is clear: The collateral damage from school closings is more serious for children than the risk of infection in the classroom.
His colleague Dr.
Dominik Ewald, board member of the Bavarian Association of Paediatricians and Adolescents, also calls for: "Better to wear a mask than to close to school." It is important that the distance rules are observed on the way to school and that the classroom is not vented .
"Then I am very hopeful that we can keep the schools open over the winter."
Criticism comes from SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach
However, there is also criticism of the pediatricians' analysis.
For example, SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach criticizes the fact that the data collected over the summer are currently of little informative value because the number of infections did not increase significantly again until autumn.
In fact, Kabesch also explains that the proportion of people infected in children's clinics is around 1.3 percent if you only analyze the data from October to mid-November.
The doctors see this as further evidence that the infection process has been well recorded and that there is no high number of unreported cases.
"The numbers are not unexpectedly high as in the first wave, when many children were not tested," says Kabesch.
As of yesterday, according to the Ministry of Culture, around four percent of the students in Bavaria were not in class because of quarantine, 0.24 percent because of positive corona tests.
Two percent of the teachers are in quarantine, 0.3 percent have tested positive.