More and more students are absent from class due to corona infections or quarantine. As of Friday it was 3.8 percent, as announced by the Ministry of Education. That is more than twice as many as shortly after the Christmas holidays on January 11th. And in kindergartens, crèches and after-school care centers, many facilities are now also affected by the infection process. The proportion of students who were absent from class because of a positive corona test was – as of Friday – just under 1.5 percent, 2.3 percent were in quarantine – a little more than doubled on January 11th. The numbers have thus developed roughly parallel to the general corona incidence in Bavaria, which has also more than doubled in the same period.
The virus is also affecting more and more care facilities – from crèches to kindergartens to after-school care. As of Friday, there were 970 out of 10,200 facilities across Bavaria, according to the Ministry of Social Affairs, which corresponds to about a trebling within a week. 49 facilities were completely closed, 691 partially. In another 230, only individuals were affected by quarantine measures. According to the ministry, only a week earlier, only seven facilities had been closed completely and 147 had been partially closed, and individuals had been affected in 119 facilities. “The primary goal remains to keep the daycare centers open, because children need children, parents need reliable daycare and families and employees need the greatest possible protection,” said Social Affairs Minister Carolina Trautner (CSU).
Minister of Education Michael Piazolo (Free Voters) said: “The close-meshed tests and adapted quarantine regulations help to keep the risk of infection in schools low.” Among other things, there should also be PCR tests in 5th and 6th grades from March. Nevertheless, you have to “be careful and watch the development closely”. The Education and Science Union (GEW) expects that many more care facilities will soon be closed in whole or in part or that care times will be reduced. “Due to the lack of testing procedures with antigen tests, we suspect that outbreaks will not be noticed in time. This will affect many at the same time,” said Vice President Gerd Schnellinger. “From my point of view, this is just the beginning and the end of the road is far from in sight.”
A difficult situation for mothers and fathers: “You always have to expect that your child will not be able to go to school due to quarantine measures and will have to be looked after at home,” said Henrike Paede, deputy chairwoman of the Bavarian Parents’ Association. “One can only hope that their employers will support them as long as they have already exhausted the available quotas.” Around a year ago, there were still catch-up solutions for working parents in systemically relevant professions. And this time? “Appropriate plans are being prepared as a precaution,” said the Ministry of Social Affairs.
The GEW reported on creative solutions on site. If more and more staff are leaving, it will become an unsolvable challenge. Then the educators and nannies alone bear the burden again, although they have been working at their breaking point for almost two years. In Schnellinger’s view, medium-term consequences in times of extreme shortage of skilled workers are also not foreseeable. “Ultimately, our children bear the consequences of failed policies in early childhood education.” The deputy GEW chairman described the mood among the employees after two years of the pandemic as “disappointed, resigned, worried and anxious”. Colleagues felt neither taken seriously nor adequately protected. At no time were they even remotely provided with adequate protective measures.