Michael Beer received digital mail from the Ministry of Culture last week. “Vaccination offer for adult pupils in the current final and pre-graduate classes” is written above the letter that hundreds of other schools received at the same time as the headmaster of the grammar school in Bad Aibling. A seemingly tempting offer – if it had arrived before the Abitur exams, when the students were still in schools.
“Unfortunately, some of the train has now left,” says Beer and briefly calculates the remaining potential vaccine candidates on the phone: He gets twelve adult pupils from Q11 – the 130 high school graduates have long since left school. “I don’t need to order mobile vaccination teams for twelve,” he says – especially since the vaccine is piling up in the district. “The plan has been overtaken by reality.” The information from the headmaster sounds like a shrug.
It’s been ten weeks since Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) announced the big vaccination initiative for high school students. The aim was to prevent exams from becoming spreading events as much as possible. It should start in June, actually.
But vaccine was scarce, now the start should be this Wednesday. Specifically, schools are to organize series vaccinations in the vaccination center or in the school through mobile teams for pupils who are ready to vaccinate. The offer is also valid for twelve to 17 year olds with a previous illness – like their older classmates, they should receive the vaccine from Moderna or Biontech. The crux: Since the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) has only recommended Biontech for adults, the state’s offer only applies to adults – i.e. for those who have been able to get vaccinated relatively easily since the end of the prioritization a month ago.
Air filters in the classrooms are supposed to ensure classroom teaching, but it is still unclear how many of the filters there will actually be.
(Photo: Hauke-Christian Dittrich / dpa)
So what can the concept drawn up by the Ministry of Health achieve now? Aside from practicality, the concerns are also great. Many school principals want to avoid putting pressure on students through vaccination teams. In the ministry of culture they defuse. “It is and remains an offer to the students, because everyone who is vaccinated is important,” says a spokesman. There are fatalistic tones about timing.
“Better late than never”
As long as there was insufficient capacity, “the ministry could not initiate anything”. There is understanding for that. “Better late than never,” says Pankraz Männlein, head of the Bavarian vocational school teachers’ association. One now wants to examine to what extent the vaccination offer can be extended to younger students. Last Sunday, Söder made an appeal to Stiko for a recommendation – but so far the experts have remained defensive.
The adult vaccination in schools is “not easy in all cases,” admitted Minister of Education Michael Piazolo (FW) on Tuesday after the cabinet. But there is the way through the vaccination centers, he hears of such examples. Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU) said that in the current phase one should “actively try to change the system so that we can get the vaccine to the people”. Young people between the ages of 18 and 25 may think that it wasn’t their turn to begin with and that they now see no reason to vaccinate, he said. “We have to give answers to that.”
Meanwhile, one rushes forward in the Upper Franconian district of Hof. City and district start a large-scale campaign with family doctors and the vaccination center. As many secondary school students as possible should be immunized – not just adults, the offer is valid from the age of twelve.
As the Council of Ministers decided, the Free State is providing 190 million euros to purchase mobile air purification devices for Bavaria’s classrooms. With the funding, the sponsors of schools and daycare centers could equip more than 100,000 rooms, the municipalities would have to bear the other half of the costs. To this end, they are in talks with the municipal umbrella organizations, including the organization, said Piazolo. He added, however, that he could not make a firm promise that the fans would actually be available across the board in autumn due to a lack of formal responsibility.
SPD education politician Simone Strohmayr finds this “shameful”, the plans seem like “poor declarations of intent” for her. And the chairman of the Bavarian Association of Cities, Straubing’s Lord Mayor Markus Pannermayr (CSU), criticized: Concrete information on the amount of costs, the time frame and the design of the funding program have “unfortunately not yet been made”.
So that classroom lessons can take place after the holidays despite the Delta variant, Piazolo also wants to expand the test strategy in schools: for example, using PCR pooling to collect gargle samples from the children.