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German federal and state governments reject consistent lockdown measures
On Tuesday, the heads of the German Länder (federal states) met again with Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss pandemic measures. On the same day, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) again reported almost 1,000 coronavirus deaths.
The new coronavirus variant, which is already ravaging Ireland, Portugal and Spain, in addition to Britain, is taking centre stage in Germany was well. Other mutations have been discovered in South Africa and Brazil. Yet the politicians at both the federal and state level continue to insist on keeping workplaces, schools and day care centres open and rejecting any serious restrictions on the economy.
How do kids understand the coronavirus pandemic?
But there is confusion on the issue. In November and December, several state education ministers representing Hamburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Schleswig-Holstein among others insisted that there was no scientific evidence that schools had become infection hot-spots. But they were contradicted by new data based on an outbreak at a school in Hamburg, where some 40 infections were registered in September.
Meanwhile, when schools were open between the two lockdowns, teachers were left to find their own ways to cope with the pandemic: Though schools did provide some ordinary masks, most did not give teachers the finer-filtered FFP-2 masks that can provide better protection. Without them, teachers who shared a classroom with an infected student would often have to isolate for a week, putting a constant strain on time and resources.