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Minister of Health Lauterbach: “There will be no more closures of this kind”
Photo: Carsten Koall / dpa
According to Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD), the closure of daycare centers in the first waves of the corona pandemic was unnecessary.
"Closing daycare centers is definitely not medically appropriate and, based on current knowledge, it would not have been necessary to the extent that we did it back then," said Lauterbach when the final report of the "Corona Daycare Study" was published together with the Minister for Family Affairs Lisa Paus (Greens).
"There will be no more closures of this kind," said Lauterbach.
Paus said that according to the study, the children who can benefit most from early childhood education and support are particularly hard hit by the consequences of the corona containment measures.
Daycare centers with many children from socially disadvantaged families now have almost twice as much support, for example in language or motor skills, as before the pandemic.
The daycare study, financed by both ministries and carried out by the German Youth Institute and the Robert Koch Institute, ran from summer 2020 to June of this year.
The effects of the pandemic and the protective measures on day care, children and families were examined from different perspectives.
Among other things, it determined how often children of daycare age contract corona, how susceptible they are to the virus and how severe the course of the disease is.
Kitas probably not a pandemic driver
According to the study, the number of infections found in daycare centers tended to follow those in society as a whole rather than vice versa.
The incidence remained consistently below that of older children and adolescents.
Children of daycare age infected with corona usually showed few or no symptoms, at least with the first corona variants.
"The daycare centers were not sources of infection," said Lauterbach.
This must be taken into account "if we now enter the winter wave".
With a view to the general pandemic development, the minister said there was no reason for the all-clear.
The hospitals were working at the limit and “the new variants are being built up”.
fek/dpa