Associations of pediatricians, politicians and lawyers have sharply criticized the new Infection Protection Act. They fear negative consequences for children and young people as well as continued unequal treatment due to the possibility for the federal states to order masks and corona tests. The conditions according to which the federal states are allowed to impose measures in schools and daycare centers from October 1st are “poorly formulated,” said Burkhard Rodeck, Secretary General of the German Society for Child and Adolescent Medicine (DGKJ): “It would have been the task of the federal government , to set clearly defined parameters for compulsory tests and masks in schools and daycare centers,” criticized Rodeck in an interview with WELT.
The Infection Protection Act of the traffic light government, which the Bundestag still has to approve, creates the framework for new corona measures that also affect children and young people. According to the draft law, the federal states may impose a mask requirement in schools from grade five. The prerequisite is therefore that this is necessary “to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 and to maintain regular classroom teaching”. Corona tests in daycare centers and all school classes may also be ordered if they are also necessary “to ensure the functionality of the health system or other critical infrastructure”. As far as the definition, which experts such as DGKJ Secretary General Rodeck now criticize as unclear – and thus as potentially too far-reaching.
Because it should no longer be about preventing “infections at any price”, said Rodeck. Tests are therefore only useful and necessary in the case of symptoms. A “hard reason” is also needed to oblige children to wear restrictive masks and thus to protect others: “Face masks are not comfort items.” . Rodeck warned against the unequal treatment of children and young people compared to adults by the law.
The German Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases (DGPI) also expressed concerns. “Proportionality, meaningfulness and evidence” should be the focus of the measures, demanded the chairman Tobias Tenenbaum at the request of WELT: “Restrictive measures specifically for children are not justifiable if they are not equally obligatory in the general population.”
The Professional Association of Pediatricians (BVKJ) fears massive consequences from continued tests without cause. These have a sensitivity of just 40 percent, BVKJ spokesman Jakob Maske told WELT: “Unjustified quarantine orders for false positive tests are the consequences that lead to further social isolation and reduced learning time.” This would be after two and a half years Pandemic had to be recognized a long time ago, criticized Maske. In addition to school closures, restrictions on cultural and sports facilities must also be ruled out: “In these facilities in particular, we keep observing swab and hygiene measures that are no longer scientifically justifiable.”
Law professor and Ethics Council member Frauke Rostalski said in a statement to WELT that children and young people would be asked to make further “special sacrifices”. It is to be expected that masks will become “across-the-board reality” for students from the fifth grade onwards: “I do not assume that the justification for endangering face-to-face teaching will mean a serious hurdle in practice.”
Even the evaluation report used by the federal government only classified masks as an effective measure to combat the virus if they are worn correctly: “For children and young people who are supposed to spend the whole day in school with a mask, in my opinion this is at best a pious wish,” said Rostalski.
The fact that schools and day-care centers are allowed to impose testing obligations again does not mean normality, since due to the existing isolation obligations, there can be no regular operation: “As a result of the mass tests that are to be expected, there will of course be educational failures and other losses of participation opportunities,” warned the lawyer. She considers the draft law to be fundamentally questionable: “As a society, we should ask ourselves whether measures are still justified at all.”
The central problem is that the definition of a specific risk of “overburdening the health system” leaves many questions unanswered. The importance of the number of cases makes the point of reference for every measure vague: “We are in danger of not getting out of the spiral,” criticized Rostalski. This is also shown by the obligation to wear masks in long-distance transport and on airplanes, which applies without any specific risk to the health system being identified at all: “For reasons of proportionality, this is more than questionable.”
Criticism of the unclear requirements of the law also comes from representatives of the governing parties. When asked by WELT, the Greens MP and economic policy spokesman for the parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Dieter Janecek, spoke out against the “restrictive measures” for children provided for by the law: “Neither mask requirements nor random tests are still appropriate in this late phase of the pandemic .” The quarantine regulations would also have to be readjusted. “Only if there is a real and verifiable threat of overburdening the health system on site should measures be possible at all,” said Janecek.
The President of the Conference of Ministers of Education, on the other hand, praised the fact that school closures due to the pandemic are now excluded from the law. Schools should be affected as little as possible, said KMK President Karin Prien (CDU) to the “Funke” newspapers. The measures would “only be used if they are required locally or if teaching would not be possible otherwise”.
A number of FDP parliamentary group members expressed fundamental concerns about the traffic light project. Member of Parliament Frank Schäffler already criticized on Wednesday that the federal states were given “far too many opportunities to intervene in personal rights and freedoms”. The Bundestag could then only watch. Parts of the opposition also expressed dissatisfaction and demanded a precise definition in the law as to when the federal states could impose measures. The legal policy spokesman for the CSU in the Bundestag, Volker Ullrich, complained that there was a lack of clarity “from when countries may set stricter rules”. The law is so “not capable of approval” CDU General Secretary Mario Czaja also criticized that the traffic light had given many decisions to the federal states. He believes “that the measures go beyond what the infection process makes necessary”.
Many federal states, but also hospital and doctor representatives, had already called for nationwide limit values in advance, on the basis of which protective measures could be imposed. This included, for example, the number of free intensive care beds. The responsible ministers Karl Lauterbach (SPD) and Marco Buschmann (FDP) are now leaving this decision to the federal states. The law still has to be approved by the Bundestag and Bundesrat. In the past it had been shown that in many countries both the incidence and the hospitalization rate had been incorrectly calculated or reported in an unclear manner. On this basis, in turn, restrictions on fundamental rights were decided.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published without the quotes from Frauke Rostalski. It was supplemented by her statements on Thursday afternoon.
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