Corona: Now it becomes clear how unimportant children really are in this country

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In many federal states, the Easter holidays have started these days.

Millions of school children are at home.

Safe, one is tempted to say, because the increasing number of infections in recent weeks has not stopped at schools.

Despite the introduction of changing lessons in many places and the requirement to wear a mask, more and more children have become infected with the corona virus.

And with the increasing incidence of infections, voices are again being raised that question whether students will return to their classrooms after the holidays.

Memories of the days before Christmas come back.

At that time, too, there was initially only talk of an extension of the vacation.

Only a few days, so the children and parents were put off.

These are not real school closings.

But whoever relied on it was disappointed.

A few days turned into weeks, even months.

Because what is often forgotten in the public debate about the supposedly nationwide schools: Some middle school classes have still not returned to face-to-face classes since then.

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Is there a threat of repetition or another extension?

Ifo boss Clemens Fuest expresses concern in the WELT interview: One has to fear that “at the end of the Easter holidays, people will say: 'Well, now we really haven't made it and now we're also closing the schools.'

The whole thing is “a really desolate state.

Here, one person shifts responsibility to the other, and that is economically bad and socio-politically no longer acceptable. "

Desolate and socio-politically no longer acceptable.

There is no better way to describe the way children, educators and parents are treated in this country.

And this despite the fact that politicians from all parties and in all federal states have been asserting for weeks and months that education would enjoy “top priority”.

Stop it!

We should finally realize: In this country, the Mallorca vacation, the hairdresser visit and the trouble-free work in the open-plan office or the factory have priority.

Not the security and future prospects of our children.

If children were really important in this country, then one would have used the time of the closed schools in the winter months to install air filters, to get quick tests and to accelerate the vaccination rate for the teachers.

But little or nothing happened here.

Air filters can now be seen in offices and parliaments, but only very rarely in school buildings.

Prudent neighbors

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Schools and daycare centers were opened in many places before rapid tests were widely available.

In Berlin, for example, children with the usual sniffling nose are only allowed to go to daycare if they have a negative corona test.

The tests promised by the Senate Administration have meanwhile been ordered but not yet delivered.

Parents who queue up in front of a test site with their small children are sometimes sent away again: "We only test from 6 years of age".

The perplexity of the parents and educators is correspondingly great.

A glance across the border would have been enough to see how it could be done better.

To Denmark, for example.

Our northern neighbor not only vaccinates faster.

It also used the lockdown in the winter months to develop a comprehensive test strategy to flank the first cautious school openings.

It paid off: Denmark has the pandemic under control, the incidence is now well below the German one.

Another important aspect can be shown using the Danish example: Copenhagen only let the first children back into the classroom when the incidence in the population had fallen so sharply thanks to the comprehensive lockdown that openings accompanied by rapid tests could be considered safe.

Austria, which also tests a lot in schools, opened up with a significantly higher incidence - and is in a much worse position today.

Soothe everyone, improve nothing

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A society has only a certain risk budget to allocate in the fight against the pandemic.

In order to stop the exponential growth, it can use various levers.

It can make home office mandatory, introduce exit restrictions, close retail outlets and restaurants - or schools.

And to be honest: We never had a real lockdown in Germany.

Because while schools and daycare centers were mostly closed in the winter months, business and vacation trips were allowed, workers continued to flow into the open-plan offices and church services were allowed to take place in many places.

If children really had priority, then as a society with a consistent lockdown we would have done everything to reduce the incidence so much that schools can be safely opened.

Education policy shows, as if under a magnifying glass, what makes the German course so dangerous due to the pandemic: We try to please everyone, to find a compromise that everyone can live with - and we fail.

Just don't have to work from home that are too strict, that could annoy entrepreneurs.

Cancel the services at Easter?

We cannot do that to the churches.

Ban flights to Mallorca?

Many have already booked.

The same thing happens with schools: They should be opened, but only a little.

With alternating lessons here and digital lessons there.

Without being present here, with a few quick tests there.

So that the teachers and parents, who are very concerned about the health of the students and their own, are at least a little appeased.

And so that those who demand open educational institutions regardless of the incidence don't rumble too loudly.

The result is a patchwork quilt that hardly brings the children anything, but increases the rate of infection too much for schools and daycare centers to remain open in the long term.

Politics has maneuvered us into this hopeless situation.

If children really enjoyed priority, then they would have had one last chance: they could have used the Easter holidays for a consistent lockdown.

In the two to three weeks in which the schoolchildren and many smaller siblings are at home anyway, the parents have taken vacation, she could have said: Shutdown.

We close everything that does not belong to the absolute basic care and together lower the incidence to a value that allows us to open schools and daycare centers really safely after the holidays.

During this time, we get masses of rapid tests for the educational institutions and accelerate the vaccination rate for the educators in order to secure the openings.

The fact that politics does not do exactly that, that it wastes valuable time, is the final declaration of bankruptcy in front of the educational opportunities of an entire generation.

Or, as Ifo boss Fuest describes it on Twitter: "Not using the Easter holidays to reduce infections is an attack on children and families." And it finally proves what priority they enjoy in this country: none.