Summer festivals, school celebrations, sporting events. In addition, community and village festivals, company celebrations, company outings and graduation trips. There’s a lot of catching up to do. And you can tell from the revelers how happy they are that all this will be possible again this July and that Corona will be forgotten in its third year. The official figures, which the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) continues to publish, are still high. The RKI currently records a seven-day incidence of 684.9 for the district of Munich. Officially, 2395 people were infected with the virus within a week. There are probably many more, you just don’t know. What you know: After the party, the disillusionment often comes with a positive test.
At the Unterhachinger Bürgerfest, which opened on Friday evening after a two-year break, the mood was better than it had been for a long time. The tent was full, people danced exuberantly. Mayor Wolfgang Panzer noted how happy everyone was that it could finally take place again. But the recommended minimum distance of 1.50 meters can hardly be maintained in the beer tent. Either you forget Corona for the evening and hope that everything goes well. Or you stay at home. The fact that some continue to avoid mass events is shown by the number of participants in sporting events such as the “Run for Trees” on Sunday, in which around fifty percent fewer runners took part than before Corona.
There is hardly any mask requirement anymore
In the neighboring communities, too, people frolic this weekend at street festivals in Oberhaching and Kirchheim, at flea markets such as in Neubiberg, midsummer celebrations such as in Ottobrunn, the Leonhardi Festival in Höhenkirchen-Siegertsbrunn and the festival weekend in Salmdorf. Hardly anyone wore a mask. You don’t have to. Masks are currently only compulsory in local public transport, in nursing homes, hospitals and similar facilities in which vulnerable groups are housed and treated.
However, companies whose staff are absent due to illness know just how cheerfully the virus is still spreading. And this is also increasingly being noticed by the schools, which continue to record sick leave. Many at the same time when a class comes from the school hostel. At a grammar school, almost an entire grade was caught after a trip lasting several days, only a few tests are said to have been negative.
The district office is groping in the dark at the moment as to how exactly the infection situation in the schools is. “There is currently no longer an obligation to report infections in schools and day-care centers to the health authorities,” the authority explains the uncertain data situation. However, some schools and institutions continue to contact the health department to discuss outbreak events, for example in connection with the school camps that are currently taking place in many places. “But these are only isolated reports,” said a spokeswoman for the authorities.
The current statistics from the health department showed 425 infected children and adolescents on Friday morning. There, however, a further increase is expected, “not least because of the upcoming graduation trips and celebrations as well as the subsequent summer holidays”. The school authority also notes that the number of corona infections has recently increased significantly again, both among schoolchildren and teachers.
The Arbeiterwohlfahrt (Awo) München-Land, which runs numerous childcare facilities, has not yet noticed such a development among the smaller children. The Awo reports that the corona cases, both among staff and among the children cared for, were limited. “There are currently only a few individual cases of corona, sometimes an employee, sometimes a child. So far, this has not led to any spread in the daycare centers, nor to restrictions or closures,” says Susanne Schroeder, head of the daycare center. At Awo, however, you also know “that this can change quickly”.