School: No quarantine for the whole class

Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.

More posts by Christiane Fux All content is checked by medical journalists.

With the end of the holiday season, experts expect a sharp rise in Covid cases in daycare centers and schools. With less strict quarantine rules, it is now to be prevented nationwide that massive face-to-face classes are again canceled due to quarantine rules. The federal government and the health ministers agreed on this on Monday.

The most important changes to the quarantine

In the event of a corona case, the entire class should no longer have to go into quarantine in the future.
In schools, only classmates who have sat directly next to, in front of or behind the infected person are considered direct contact persons who are therefore subject to quarantine.
There should be exceptions for vaccinated and recovered students. In principle, you should no longer have to go into quarantine.
The other classmates should be tested intensively in the subsequent time.
For students who have to be in quarantine, this obligation is reduced from 14 to five days, provided that the test result is negative.

The new rules should only be applied to schools that implement appropriate ventilation, mask and test concepts.

“Guard rails” for health authorities

Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) said that the new rules should only serve as "guard rails" for the health authorities. In the specific case, they should still be able to make different decisions. It is also still open from when the new rules will apply.

The virologist Prof. Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit from the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg welcomed the regulations in an interview with ZDFheute as a step in the right direction. But one could also have discussed whether the next person sitting next to them could not have to quarantine during daily tests.

He also put up for discussion that wearing masks and extensive testing in schools might only be necessary in the case of particularly high incidences.

Risks of easing

Particularly in view of the highly contagious delta variant, the relaxed quarantine regulations also harbor risks.

The virus is currently spreading most strongly among children and adolescents. No vaccine has yet been approved for children under the age of 12; the age group from 12 to 17 years of age is only partially vaccinated, as the corresponding general vaccination recommendation of the Standing Vaccination Commission (STIKO) came only a few weeks ago.

Even if children and adolescents rarely become seriously ill, they can pass the virus on and thus help it to spread to more vulnerable sections of the population.

Tags: alcohol drugs magazine eyes