Germany begins its greatest ever public health experiment on Monday, as 3.5 million children in four federal states, Berlin, Brandenburg, Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia, return to their classrooms for the first time in five months. Schoolchildren in the southern state of Bavaria, which has been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, don’t return to school until September 7th. With no decision yet on masks, a teachers’ union there has warned that “a lesson with masks is not a real lesson”. “If infection numbers rise, one has to decide what’s best,” said Simone Fleischmann, president of one Bavarian teachers’ union, BLLV. Germany’s business lobby has welcomed as overdue the return to regular lessons in schools, calling it a sensible balance between “health protection and a revival of business”.

Source: The Irish Times August 09, 2020 17:48 UTC