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Stuttgart (dpa) - After a corona outbreak in a Freiburg daycare center, the state government in Baden-Württemberg is initially refraining from opening daycare centers and primary schools nationwide.
Two children from emergency care were infected with a virus mutation, and more than 20 children and employees in the facility were infected with the corona virus, Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann announced in Stuttgart.
Now it has to be clarified whether it is also about the new virus variants.
"If the mutant should spread to us now, we would have to face this new situation," said Kretschmann.
Then the question of opening up primary schools and daycare centers would have to be reassessed.
State Health Minister Manne Lucha (Greens) said in the evening that it was the first case of mutated viruses in a daycare center in the southwest.
A total of 13 more cases with the new virus variants across the country became known on Wednesday, said a ministry spokesman, correcting the number upwards.
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The district office in Freiburg explains that the first corona outbreak in the daycare was on January 17th.
All 24 people affected since then have been in quarantine and the contacts have been followed up.
The Diakonie Baden added that 14 teachers and 10 children from the Immergrün day care center in Freiburg are suspected of being infected with a mutated variant of the coronavirus.
Originally, Kretschmann and Education Minister Susanne Eisenmann (CDU) wanted to announce the decision this Wednesday that daycare centers and elementary schools should be gradually reopened next Monday.
In view of the falling number of infections in the country, the decision was considered a formality.
The opening is now on hold.
It is questionable whether the topic will be discussed again before the planned end of the nationwide lockdown on February 14th.
Kretschmann said: "I have always made it clear that we make the decision about opening depending on the pandemic and that we would be faced with a completely new situation if one of the mutated viruses should manifest itself."
Now you have to be clear before you can make a new decision.
A spokeswoman for Eisenmann said: "The Ministry of Social Affairs and the State Health Office must first clarify the exact facts."
Only then can you advise on how to proceed.
For the Minister of Education, who had pushed for an opening, the renewed postponement is a setback.
She actually wanted to open daycare centers and elementary schools in the interests of children after the Christmas holidays - “regardless of the incidence”.
In Baden-Württemberg around 450,000 children go to daycare centers and around 382,000 attend a primary school.
An opening was already planned for January 18, but Kretschmann had prevented this because of the high number of infections.
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Kretschmann had already emphasized on Tuesday that if the new, probably more aggressive virus variants from Great Britain or South Africa spread in the southwest, there would be a new situation.
"That can lead to drastic measures."
Then easing would have to be reversed.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210127-99-197040 / 2