Corona and school
Education union: Also prioritize teachers in PCR tests
School as a risk location: The education and science union criticizes the fact that day care centers and schools were not provided with PCR lollipop tests across the board. Photo: Julian Stratenschulte/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The Minister of Health wants to prioritize certain PCR tests. Teachers should also be given preferential treatment, demands a professional association. These would have “a lot of contact” with the unvaccinated.
The Education and Science Union (GEW) has called for teachers and educators to be taken into account when prioritizing corona PCR tests.
“You not only have a lot of contact at work, but also a lot of contact with unvaccinated people,” said GEW chairwoman Maike Finnern to the newspapers of the Funke media group (Friday).
Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) wants to present a regulation on the prioritization of the evaluation of PCR tests at the weekend. In a draft regulation by his ministry as of Tuesday afternoon, it said that in view of the scarce capacities and drastically increasing infections, it was necessary that “a priority diagnosis of sample material from employees with contact with particularly vulnerable groups of people is ensured”.
“shouldn’t have happened”
Finnern criticized: “It shouldn’t have happened that we now have to prioritize access to the PCR tests.” It has always been said that schools should definitely remain open. “The provision would have been a building block if tests were available.” She added: “If there were a nationwide supply of PCR lollipop tests for schools and daycare centers, we would be in a completely different position now.”
The seven-day incidence of new corona infections had recently increased significantly and has reached the highest level since the pandemic began.
Federal Minister of Education Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP) spoke out again against school closures: “There is great agreement to keep the schools open,” she told the “Passauer Neue Presse” (Friday). Everything must be done for this, since students suffered greatly from school closures in the first waves of the pandemic. Children and adolescents have been severely affected by recent infections.