How great is the corona risk in schools and daycare centers?

Bavarian study provides insights

Created: 2022-01-20 21:36

By: Dirk Walter, Cornelia Schramm, Claudia Schuri

Corona tests have long been part of everyday life in Bavarian schools.

© Sebastian Gollnow

Many parents are very worried: how vulnerable are children in schools and daycare centers?

The Bavarian university hospitals examined this in a study.

Munich – The number of corona infections is skyrocketing, in Munich there were around 200 schools and daycare centers in quarantine on Thursday. The question of whether children are superspreaders, whether the virus spreads particularly in schools, stirs people's minds. Now there is good news. In the Covid Kids Bavaria study, the Bavarian university hospitals examined the incidence of infection in daycare centers and primary schools in October 2020, November and December 2020 and March 2021.

"The numbers are very reassuring," said Professor Christoph Klein, director of the children's clinic at the LMU-Klinikum. "We have no indication that the children were virus slingshots." Professor Johannes Hübner, Head of the Infectious Diseases Department at the Pediatric Clinic, also confirmed: "Children have not been the drivers of the pandemic so far." Safer teaching is possible with hygiene measures.

The scientists had analyzed the spread of Corona in 99 day care centers and 48 primary schools throughout Bavaria. A total of 1337 primary school children, 1231 kindergarten children, 466 teachers and 822 educators took part in the study. During the tests in autumn 2020, only one educator was infected. In November/December 2020, three teachers, two kindergarten children and seven primary school children were affected. In the third phase in March 2021 there was no positive test. The risk of infection developed analogously to the local seven-day incidence.

The results of the study play an important role in the decision as to whether schools and day care centers should be closed.

"We are in constant contact with science," emphasized Science Minister Bernd Sibler (CSU).

"Since the last survey, there have been no school closures across Bavaria."

Currently 55,000 students infected or in quarantine

Currently (as of Thursday, January 20), 1.36 percent of the 1.6 million schoolchildren in Bavaria are infected with Corona, and a further 2.05 percent are in quarantine - a total of around 55,000 children in Bavaria are staying away from school.

There is currently no distance teaching in entire schools, nor is there a rule as to how many students in quarantine a class switches to distance teaching.

The uncertainty is great, says Michael Schwägerl from the Bavarian Association of Philologists: "It's a diffuse situation." He hopes that there will be no closures, he doesn't want to rule it out.

Martin Schmidt from the Munich Teachers' Association also explains: "There is no other teaching that is adequate for face-to-face teaching." Henrike Paede from the Bavarian Parents' Association also wants the schools to remain open.

"This is particularly important for children who don't have such good conditions at home," she says.

On the other hand, there are also parents who demand distance learning.

An initiative promotes this on Saturday at a demo in Munich.

Schools are ready for emergencies

Schools need to be ready for emergencies.

At the Starnberg Middle School, the first weeks of school after the holidays went smoothly.

"On the first day of school we had two cases and this week three," says headmaster Heinz Pressl.

But he is aware that Omikron could change that.

"We prepared for distance learning before the Christmas holidays."

The findings of the study cannot be directly transferred to the omicron variant, which is more contagious than previous virus types.

However, according to Hübner: "Initial data from colleagues in England and the USA show that children are no more affected than adults."