Schools Will Close in Germany as Cases Surge
March 06, 2021
Original Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/14/us/german-school-close-coronavirus-lockdown.html
This fall, even as cases surged across Europe, Germany worked hard to keep schools open, prioritizing them over other aspects of daily life like restaurants and bars.
But even in a country once seen as a success story, that strategy is no longer viable. On Wednesday, German schools will close along with nonessential stores and services as part of a strict lockdown that will be in effect through Christmas. Schools are tentatively scheduled to reopen in mid-January.
“The numbers were so out of control that German leaders decided they had to lock everything down, even schools,” said Melissa Eddy, a Times correspondent in Berlin.
Germany took an aggressive approach to containment early on, relying on science, contact tracing and accessible testing to mostly keep the virus at bay. It cited research that elementary students posed a low risk of spreading the virus, which is now a growing consensus among much of the world. But that couldn’t stave off this week’s difficult decision.
“It sends the message that Germany lost control of the pandemic entirely,” Melissa said. “The schools got sacrificed because they failed to lock down everything else strictly enough.”
As in the United States, complacency, pandemic fatigue and political squabbling undercut Germany’s coordinated national restrictions. A record number of Germans have gotten infected or died in recent weeks.
The coming weeks are now especially uncertain for schools. Germany, a country long committed to data privacy, has not leaned into online learning software, which makes a transition to remote learning even more difficult.
“You do have the odd school with the inventive tech director, but the rest of them are really struggling,” Melissa said. “Going into distance learning is a big problem around here.”
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