On Easter Monday, under the umbrella of the National Academy Leopoldina in Halle, an advisory committee of legal experts, economists, psychologists, and educational experts recommended that the restrictions on curbing the coronavirus be gradually relaxed. The schools, in particular, should, therefore, be reopened as quickly as possible. Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) described the Leopoldina’s statements as “very important” for upcoming political decisions. After the Leopoldina had already published two health policy statements on the corona pandemic, this paper is now devoted to the social consequences of the ban on contact – and thus increases the pressure on the federal and state governments who want to advise on easing this week.
According to the researchers, the prerequisite for a change in the current restrictions is “that the new infections stabilize at a low level, the health system is not overloaded” and that people infected with corona can be better tested and found. “Digital data donations” via app or fitness wristband should help to better estimate the number of infections in the population. Keep your distance and mouth and nose protection are still recommended. But then “for example the retail trade and the hospitality industry” could gradually open again, it says in the paper. Business and private trips could also take place again.
The scientists are particularly dedicated to schools. You should reopen “as soon as possible”. The research group recommends starting with elementary school children because they need the most support and their parents need childcare. They could be taught in small groups of a maximum of 15 pupils with a time shift, initially only in the subjects German and mathematics. The prerequisites are “for a longer transition period” but also distance and “mouth-nose protection”. According to the researchers, the older elementary school children should start, the younger ones could then “gradually” follow. The kindergartens and daycare centers should, therefore, begin again to look after the children who are supposed to start school after the summer holidays in groups of five. In contrast, distance learning is still easier to implement in secondary schools. Here, school operations should first be resumed in “grades that are nearing completion”.
The new paper is not intended to replace the virologists’ earlier assessments, but to supplement them, explained the Berlin physicist Dirk Brockmann, who is one of the authors of the statement. One had targeted “the other end of the system”, people and society. Social problems and domestic violence also play a major role here.
Political reactions to the paper were mixed on Monday. The SPD co-chair, Norbert Walter-Borjans, warned that the restrictions would increasingly “become a psychological and economic burden”. He said that “a household goods or furniture store that I can only enter with respiratory protection is preferable to closed shops that restrict supplies and threaten hundreds of thousands of economic livelihoods,” he said Eastern Herald Newspaper. Keeping schools closed for a long time is “unreasonable” for parents and children. To open them, however, would mean “that the risk of infection will increase significantly”. Any easing, therefore, remains “a question of conscience, which must be discussed intensively not only between but also in the parties”.
Normality will only return slowly, Walter-Borjans continues. The lever cannot simply be shifted “from zero to one” again, the situation remains too fragile for that. For him, the “decisive criterion” in the upcoming talks, “the resilience of the medical facilities and the treating staff” should not be overwhelmed. “No doctor should be forced to decide who gets a ventilator and who doesn’t.” Walter-Borjans said: “In general, it should apply to remain as reserved as possible after loosening the conditions.”
From circles of the Bavarian state government it was said that the exit scenarios were being dealt with intensively – however, the time for easing had not yet come. One tries to a unified procedure of federal and state. In the past, Prime Minister Markus Soder (CSU) had advanced several times with stronger restrictions.
Meanwhile, the metal and electrical industry put pressure on. The dealerships should be the first to open again, said the managing director of their employers’ association Gesamtmetall, Oliver Zander. Politicians have to provide “demand” again.
