Doctors warn of the "devastating long-term consequences" of the corona measures for children and adolescents.
In many psychiatric hospitals there is even a triage because of the onslaught of patients.
Berlin - In the Corona crisis *, the dreaded "triage" is tragically applied to the youngest of all people: not in the intensive care unit, but in child and adolescent psychiatry.
Numerous patients would have to be turned away there, warns the professional association of paediatricians.
Anyone who is not at risk of suicide and “only” has a depression will no longer be accepted at all.
Corona measures: devastating long-term consequences for children and adolescents
Pediatricians have called for schools and daycare centers to open quickly and warned of the "devastating long-term consequences" of the corona measures.
Schools and daycare centers should be opened quickly, "of course in accordance with the applicable guidelines and with appropriate testing *", demanded the President of the German Society for Child and Adolescent Medicine (DGKJ), Jörg Dötsch, in the Tuesday edition of the
Rheinische Post
.
School openings should not be made dependent on vaccinations.
Absolutely necessary even without a Covid vaccination: "Enable children to lead a normal life"
"We see the urgent need for people who cannot yet be vaccinated to have any disadvantages," said Dötsch.
"It is absolutely necessary, even if adolescents in the higher grades can be vaccinated, to enable children of elementary school age, but also in middle grades, to have a normal social life again so that they can develop normally".
Coronavirus & children: Focusing solely on vaccination can "have more disadvantages than benefits"
Dötsch emphasized the importance of social participation for children.
"But making this goal dependent solely on the vaccinations * can ultimately have more disadvantages than benefits for the children," said the DGKJ President, referring to the lack of vaccine approval for children.
The prerequisite for vaccinations in children is not only a safe vaccine approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), but also the self-interest for children, said Dötsch. "They must not only be vaccinated to get the pandemic under control as a whole." The self-interest for children is given when the protection against the disease through the vaccination is higher than the potential risks. Studies have now well proven that the British virus variant is also significantly less dangerous for children than for adults.
The professional association of paediatricians (BVKJ) warned of "devastating long-term consequences" for children and adolescents. In this case, we are not talking about the long-term consequences of a corona disease, the so-called Long Covid Syndrome *, but about the secondary consequences of the measures. "Children and adolescents were massively neglected in the pandemic from the start," BVKJ spokesman Jakob Maske is
quoted
in the
Rheinische Post
. In the first phase, general restrictions such as school and daycare closings were still understandable. "But in the meantime we have learned that children carry the infection far less and are significantly less likely to get the disease themselves than adults," said Maske.
There is still no unanimous opinion among doctors about infection, the course of the disease and the danger of Sars-CoV-2 in children.
Only recently, the German Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases (DGPI) evaluated how dangerous a corona infection is for children * in their opinion.
BVKJ: Children of Corona disease "less at risk than from devastating long-term consequences"
Children and adolescents are therefore much less at risk from a corona disease than from "the devastating long-term consequences".
"There are psychiatric illnesses to an extent that we have never seen before," said Maske.
"The child and adolescent psychiatric units are full, there is a triage taking place. Those who are not suicidal and 'only' have a depression are no longer admitted."
Corona crisis leads to severe weight gain in children
An unusually strong weight gain can also be observed in 15 to 20 percent of children.
30 to 50 percent of the children also consume significantly more media that have nothing to do with school lessons.
On average, media consumption increased by two to three hours a day.
Children and adolescents must therefore urgently "return to normal life - regardless of the vaccination."
Corona & School: German Teachers' Association wants face-to-face lessons from incidence below 50
The German Teachers' Association is much more cautious. A return to full face-to-face teaching is only recommended here from an incidence of 50. "Our view is that, in the case of full face-to-face teaching without distance regulation, the recommendation of the RKI * (incidence 50) should be followed as long as many teachers and almost all children have not yet been vaccinated," said its president, Heinz-Peter Meidinger.
(AFP / va) * Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA
