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Despite rising corona numbers, the state government wants to keep the daycare centers in North Rhine-Westphalia open until Easter with a reduced number of hours.

An emergency operation, as requested by the city of Duisburg, he will not allow, said Family Minister Joachim Stamp (FDP) on Thursday in the family committee of the state parliament.

"At this point in time, I will not agree to an entry ban with emergency care and privileges for individual professional groups." According to Stamps, daycare children in NRW should not be tested for the corona virus across the board for the time being.

As a protective measure, a restricted pandemic operation in which the daycare centers basically remained open in Duisburg is possible, suggested Stamp.

Parents are appealed to to look after their children at home if possible.

This model, which was valid nationwide until the end of February, has now been allowed again in Wuppertal.

The Ruhr city of Duisburg, on the other hand, wants to go back to emergency care.

Then only children with special needs and children of parents with systemically relevant professions will be cared for.

There is a coordinated process with the country if weekly incidences are longer than 100, Stamp said.

A first proposal from Duisburg for the daycare area was not received until Wednesday afternoon.

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However, the closing of daycare centers and schools should not be the "first reflex" in the face of rising corona numbers, said Stamp.

In the "very nervous situation", the state and municipalities should stick together and not everyone should announce measures "at their own discretion".

That contributes to the uncertainty.

Nationwide, Stamp wants to stay in the daycare centers at least until Easter with the restricted regular operation with the Corona-related reduction in childcare time by ten hours per week.

In addition, there are only fixed groups.

This should ensure reliability for parents.

Stamp saw more drastic restrictions such as emergency operation only as a last resort if the corona situation escalated.

Stamp warned against staging child day-care centers "as a pandemic driver" and thus fueling fears.

But it is also not the case that daycare centers are completely infection-free.

"Children are little people too."

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While in February, according to Stamps, 1.8 percent of the 10,000 or so daycare centers in North Rhine-Westphalia were temporarily or completely closed, this proportion rose to 2.5 percent from the beginning to mid-March.

This slight increase is "not to be discussed away," said Stamp.

“But it's not a situation that has gotten out of hand.” The Greens parliamentary group leader Josefine Paul warned of a “turntable effect” if infected daycare children carried the virus into their families.

Stamp does not currently advocate comprehensive corona tests for daycare children.

Scientists had expressly not advised that all children should be tested at this point in time.

However, local studies were carried out with spit or lollipop tests in children that were not yet certified for mass use.

The SPD parliamentary group has submitted a request for the plenary next week that children and staff in the day-care centers can be tested daily.

So far, daycare workers have been able to voluntarily have themselves tested twice a week.

According to the Ministry of Family Affairs, a framework contract for the delivery of around eleven million self-tests, which can be called up in tranches, is to be awarded by the end of next week.

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Despite rising corona incidences, children in daycare centers are currently being left out entirely, said the family policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, Dennis Maelzer.

"In view of the current situation, it is now taking its revenge that the country's test strategy is not effective and that there is no functioning test infrastructure in the country."

Stamp hopes for a quick resumption of vaccinations with the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Under this condition, his goal is still that the around 16,000 employees in the daycare area can be offered a vaccination by Easter Monday.

He hoped the vaccinations could resume next week.

He expects that in the event AstraZeneca is re-approved, the test centers will also be open on the Easter holidays to make up for lost time.

The use of the AstraZeneca vaccine was suspended in Germany and other countries after isolated cases of thrombosis following vaccinations.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) wanted to decide on Thursday whether the vaccine should continue to be used.

Stamp would also be publicly vaccinated with AstraZeneca's vaccine.

He does not want to be exposed to the charge that he is pushing ahead.