As of: 01/18/2022 5:05 p.m
Lower Saxony wants to tighten the test strategy for children. In the future, tests will also be mandatory in daycare centers. In schools, people who have been vaccinated twice and genesis will soon have to test each other again.
“There would then only be an exception for children and young people who have already been boosted,” said government spokeswoman Anke Poerksen on Tuesday. So far, the daily corona tests for vaccinated and recovered schoolchildren have been voluntary until at least the end of January. The reason for the extended obligation to test is the spread of the much more contagious omicron variant.
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Kita testing should come by mid-February
The state government is planning a fundamental change for daycare centers. So far, the corona tests there have been voluntary – soon they will be mandatory. This was announced by Minister of Education Grant Hendrik Tonne (SPD) on Tuesday. Details and a specific date remained open. The aim is to start in mid-February, Tonne said. The logistics are currently being planned so that tests are reliably available. In addition, votes were still being taken within the state government. “As soon as both are in place, the obligation to test will be activated,” said Tonne. Lolli tests in particular are now to be procured for pre-school children. So far, the country has not provided any corona tests at all for children under the age of three, not even for voluntary use.
Demand from city council, Greens and ver.di
In the past few weeks, the Lower Saxony City Council, the trade union ver.di and the Greens, among others, have pushed for the introduction of compulsory testing at daycare centers. Ver.di had explained that mandatory corona tests protect employees and children, but also their parents. The Greens in the state parliament said that compulsory testing could help prevent major corona outbreaks. This is important to keep the daycare centers open. Some municipalities have already gone a step further on their own and have introduced mandatory tests for their local daycare centers.
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Crisis team: Omikron variant prevails in Lower Saxony
The coronavirus variant Omikron is now likely to be responsible for almost all new infections in Lower Saxony. According to the Corona crisis team, the proportion was already 95 percent last week. Most independent cities and counties now have incidence values over 300, said crisis team leader Heiger Scholz during the weekly press conference on Tuesday. The values are particularly high in the Bremen area, especially in Delmenhorst and Verden. It is similar in the Hamburg area with the district of Harburg.
Hospitalizations are increasing: is omicron the reason?
According to Scholz, the situation in Lower Saxony’s hospitals has also changed. According to the Robert Koch Institute, the number of hospitalizations is increasing again. Today, at 5.2, it is above five again for the first time. According to Scholz, it is still unclear whether the omicron wave is the reason for this. “We have to wait for the next few days,” said the head of the crisis team. It still looks positive when it comes to intensive care bed occupancy. This has fallen and indicates that the delta wave is creeping out. But this will change again with the fifth wave.
400,000 Lower Saxony vaccinated with Janssen vaccine
The state government is relaxed about the new federal requirements for vaccinations with the vaccine from Johnson & Johnson. Accordingly, Janssen must now be administered three times before someone is considered “boosted”. According to the crisis team, around 400,000 people in Lower Saxony have received the vector vaccine, and a very large number have been vaccinated twice.
Further information
Further information
Corona in Lower Saxony – current reports
