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After a major corona outbreak at a school in Hamburg, the authorities admitted that the infections were mainly due to one person.

In doing so, they cast doubts on previous statements that pupils would get infected especially outside of school.

This is what the “Tagesspiegel” and “taz” report, citing information from the Hamburg labor, social and health authority, which was published on the “Ask the State” platform.

Accordingly, an outbreak with almost 40 infected people at the Heinrich Hertz School became known in September.

Initially, the authorities announced that there had been a number of infections "outside of the school context".

In one class, however, many things point to a chain of infection within the school.

The Heinrich Pette Institute (HPI) and the Eppendorf University Hospital investigated the outbreak by comparing the genome sequences in the samples.

The researchers concluded that infections had occurred within the school.

In the examined and usable samples, a high number of identical genome sequences was identified, according to the information that has now been published.

“Therefore, the vast majority of transmissions are most likely due to a single source of infection.

The possibility that the outbreak resulted from independent entries can be ruled out with a probability bordering on certainty. "

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The responsible virologist at HPI, Adam Grundhoff, added to the “Tagesspiegel” that the result was so clear because the genome signature in question had not yet appeared in Hamburg at the time.

“So this can be traced back to one source.” Overall, “under 30” cases could be reconstructed, which practically all had this genome signature.

But he does not assume that all outbreaks in schools run like this: "That is certainly more heterogeneous."

Nevertheless, the analysis is explosive.

Because, according to Grundhoff, the investigation was completed at the beginning of October - but the authorities did not initially publish the results.

When the "Zeit" asked about it, the health department did not release the data and referred to an "internal need for coordination".

A spokesman for School Senator Ties Rabe only announced at the end of October: "Unfortunately, we did not find any relevant findings from which meaningful school protective measures could be derived."

Rabe maintains that there are hardly any outbreaks in schools

Now the suspicion arises that the school authorities had to suppress the publication of the results.

In addition, Rabe has to defend himself against allegations from the CDU and the Left Party, the analysis refutes his claim that schools are safe places.

Rabe told the NDR that what the researchers had found had in principle long been known - namely that there was a corona outbreak in the Heinrich Hertz School, which was not larger than initially assumed, but rather smaller.

Rabe insisted that there were hardly any outbreaks in schools.

At the moment, nobody knows why the virus spread at the Heinrich Hertz School and not at other schools.

He admitted that in retrospect it would have been better to publish the investigation immediately.