Uniform rules nationwide
Expert council calls for maximum participation for children
2/18/2022 4:02 am
The restrictions during the corona pandemic are particularly difficult for children and young people. Mental and physical illnesses weigh heavily on them. The Federal Government’s Corona Expert Council is therefore calling for special attention to be paid to them.
The Federal Government’s Corona Expert Council calls for the well-being of children to be given high priority during the pandemic. “The pandemic is particularly hard on children and young people for a variety of reasons,” said the Expert Council in its seventh statement in Berlin. “On the one hand, this includes, albeit to a lesser extent than in other age groups, the primary burden of disease from the SARS-CoV-2 infection itself,” it said.
However, the so-called secondary burden of disease caused by mental and physical illnesses in children and adolescents is particularly serious. They would be triggered, for example, by lockdown measures, stress in the family such as fear, illness, death or loss of livelihood, loss of social participation or planning security. “Children from socially disadvantaged families are particularly affected.”
Children must be protected equally from infections and diseases as a result of the pandemic. The committee spoke out in favor of re-establishing an inter-ministerial working group with representatives of the interests of children and young people and also involving schoolchildren. “Their recommendations should result in measures at federal and state level.” Access restrictions that exclude a large proportion of children and young people from attending age-appropriate leisure activities should be dropped at federal and state level, as far as the pandemic situation allows. “The current regulations for children and young people differ drastically and seemingly arbitrarily between the federal states.” The countries should make the rules uniform and based on the principle of maximum possible participation.
Experts welcome vaccination from the age of five
The expert council welcomed the fact that corona vaccines were approved for children from the age of five. However, the full participation of children and young people in education, culture and other social activities should not be made dependent on vaccination status. “Vaccinating children and young people can help to stabilize the social systems of schools, day-care centers and leisure and sports activities,” the committee explained. “It does not replace closing vaccination gaps in adults.” The experts explained that the disease burden of children and adolescents from an acute infection with the coronavirus is lower than that of adults. Nevertheless, children and adolescents, especially those with previous illnesses and risk factors, could also become seriously ill.
In addition to the acute illness, the inflammatory syndrome PIMS is observed in children and adolescents in rare cases several weeks after an infection, and some of those affected have to be treated in intensive care. Since the beginning of the pandemic, a total of around 700 PIMS cases have been reported in the register of the German Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases from more than half of all German children’s hospitals. “The actual figure will be higher due to acceptable undercoverage.”
Virologist Christian Drosten, virologist Melanie Brinkmann and the chairwoman of the German Ethics Council, Alena Buyx, belong to the Corona Expert Council advising the federal government.