Many schools have leftover rapid antigen tests which are now being given away to students and teachers before their expiration date.
Before the Christmas holidays, many schoolchildren in the Munich district received a special present: In view of the noticeable increase in cases of illness, schools gave out rapid corona tests to take home. Because although the obligation to test at schools in Bavaria expired on May 1, 2022, most of the educational institutions in the district still had or still have tests in stock.
In 2022, the Munich district office issued a total of 1,889,913 rapid corona antigen tests for self-use to schools and childcare facilities in the Munich district so that they could use them in accordance with the applicable rules. The Free State of Bavaria bought the test kits centrally and delivered them to the individual district administration authorities. According to a spokeswoman for the authority, the schools could call up the tests free of charge from the district office as required. The distribution from the district office to the schools and care facilities was ensured by a logistics service provider.
This retrieval option has also been discontinued since the obligation to test was abolished on May 1 of last year. However, there are still leftovers that the schools can give to the staff or the students so that they can use them voluntarily. However, the rapid tests have a best-before date that should not be exceeded. In order to avoid this, the schools were required from the outset to “priority use and issue those self-tests whose best-before dates will soon expire,” explains the district office. “In addition, redistribution between neighboring schools was possible.” Schools are no longer allowed to issue tests that have passed the best-before date; they must be disposed of properly. However, the district office does not have an overview of whether this case has occurred in the district and if so, in what number.
The Bavarian state government spent a total of 3.7 billion euros in 2020, 2021 and in the first half of 2022 to combat the pandemic, the Ministry of Health calculated in November in response to a request from the SPD in the state parliament. More than a billion euros of this went to measures in schools and childcare facilities, in particular for rapid tests and PCR pool tests as well as compensation for lost parental contributions.