The ministers of culture, who are deliberating in Potsdam until this Friday, are unlikely to make any binding recommendations on wearing masks in class.

Rather, it will remain that the countries proceed differently.

Hessen announced on Thursday that it would start again with so-called prevention weeks after the autumn break.

Students must then wear a medical mask in their place.

All non-vaccinated students are required to submit a negative test certificate three times a week instead of only twice.

Outside of the school tests, people under the age of 18 can continue to be tested free of charge in the Covid centers until the end of the year.

Heike Schmoll

Political correspondent in Berlin, responsible for the “educational worlds”.

  • Follow I follow

Meanwhile, a study by the American health authority CDC, after comparing schools with and without a mask requirement, shows that in those without a mask requirement the risk of infections was 3.5 times higher.

The schools in two districts were compared with similar incidences of 105 and 161 per 100,000 inhabitants, respectively, within seven days.

59.2 percent and 47.6 percent of the population had received at least one dose of vaccine against the coronavirus.

In total, data were available from 1,020 secondary schools in both school districts.

Keep testing, keep wearing your mask

21 (two percent) schools reported outbreaks less than seven days after school started. These schools were excluded from the analysis because the infections may still have come from the holiday season. Of the 999 schools that remained, 21 percent had to wear a mask from the start of the school year. 30.9 percent introduced the mask requirement with a delay of nine to 17 days after the start of the school year, and 48 percent did not have a mask requirement.

In the period from July 15 to August 31, there were 191 outbreaks in the schools analyzed.

16 in schools with mask compulsory from the start of the school year, 62 in schools with later mask compulsory and 113 in schools without mask compulsory.

The number of infections that broke out in schools without a mask requirement was almost ten times higher than in schools with a mask requirement.

The authors conclude that the study speaks in favor of a continuation of the regular tests in schools as well as a general mask requirement.

The majority of parents for the lifting of the mask requirement

In Bavaria and Saarland, it is no longer necessary to wear a mask in class, and students in Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia can also put masks on their seats.

In Berlin and Brandenburg, the mask requirement for primary school students from grades one to six is ​​suspended.

A majority of parents are in favor of the end of the mask requirement, a minority consider it to be premature.

There are different views among paediatricians and the representatives of the medical association.

Only the virologists are relatively unanimous in advocating continued wearing of masks in class in order to avoid infections.