Corona-News: Hamburg continues to pay for corona catch-up measures – the opposition wants more

News about Corona from May 04, 2023

Hamburg pays Corona-Catch-up measures continue – opposition demands more

Thursday, May 4, 7:45 p.m.: After the end of federal funding for the Corona catch-up program in schools, Hamburg wants to continue financing some central measures. Starting next year, an additional three million euros will be made available annually for this purpose. The focus is on supporting schools with a particularly large number of students from social problems, said School Senator Ties Rabe (SPD) on Thursday. Seven particularly affected schools are to continue to receive additional funds.

Other central support measures are additional learning courses in the afternoon or during the Hamburg learning holidays and the mentoring program “Connection” for fourth graders, as well as improved support and counseling services for children and young people in psychological distress.

As part of the “Catching up after Corona” action program, Hamburg received 32 million euros from the federal government over two and a half years to counteract learning deficits and psychosocial stress among schoolchildren. In the same period, the city provided 170 million euros from state funds for the funding programs, said Rabe. “More than 70,000 Hamburg schoolchildren have also benefited from this.”

The funding from state funds will now be increased to around 178 million for two and a half years when the federal program expires next year, said Rabe. “We hope to help ensure that there are no funding gaps.”

The senator was disappointed that a follow-up solution announced by the federal government was “not yet in sight”. “We hope that the federal government will still get the curve and finally get the so-called start-up opportunities program up and running.”

The CDU in the citizenship also sees it as “a sign of poverty that the traffic light government in Berlin has discontinued the successful federal program,” as their education policy spokeswoman Birgit Stöver said. It is gratifying that elements of it are being continued with state funds. “Nevertheless, the measures taken by Senator Rabe fall short. Pupils in the third grade still fall through the cracks.” Here, learning deficits have to be caught up in good time before the transfer to secondary school.

Sabine Boeddinghaus, education expert for the Left Group, praised the continued funding of individual measures. Overall, however, the state program remains “another ineffective patch in the patchwork of additional measures.” In order to support the educational path of young people, “the school authorities would have to change course towards inclusive and permanent support that also fits the respective school programs,” she demanded .

Aid to mitigate the consequences of a “catastrophic corona policy” by the red-green Senate is important, the AfD said. “In doing so, of all people, those who have become direct victims of this policy are excluded,” said the health policy spokesman for the parliamentary group, Thomas Reich, and called for sustained support for those damaged by vaccination.

state initiative Corona– Stress in children and adolescents

Wednesday, May 03, 11:59 a.m.: Together with the health insurance companies and other partners, the state government wants to make it easier for children and young people with mental and other health problems to access treatment and advice. The containment measures against the corona pandemic had hit the youngest particularly hard, said Health Minister Ursula Nonnemacher (Greens) on Wednesday at the start of the state initiative “Child Welfare in View”. And this applies in particular to children and young people in socially tense conditions and cramped apartments.

Therefore, the actors of the network in day-care centers, schools and family centers want to do more health education again. This also includes the topic of healthy nutrition, which is conveyed, for example, with children’s theater or gardening together in the day-care center garden. Cooperation with the youth welfare service, which looks after families in difficult circumstances, is also to be further expanded.

Daniela Teichert, Chairwoman of the Board of AOK Nordost, emphasized that it is not just about putting children and young people in therapy. It can also help to give the children access to sports clubs. The offers for health care and treatment should be accessible without major hurdles.

The minister referred to a nationwide study on the psychological consequences of the corona pandemic (Copsy): According to this, almost three quarters of the children and young people surveyed in Brandenburg found the changes resulting from the corona pandemic stressful. Almost 37 percent showed signs of an anxiety disorder and one in five showed symptoms of depression.

EU health authority draws lessons from the corona pandemic

Tuesday, May 02, 2023, 8:00 p.m.: The EU health authority ECDC draws a number of insights from the protracted corona pandemic. To enable countries to better prepare for future pandemics or other emergencies, the Stockholm-based authority identified four areas where lessons can be learned from the Corona period. These include the benefits of investing in the health workforce, better preparedness for the next health crisis, risk communication and community engagement, and data collection and analysis, according to an ECDC report published on Tuesday.

All these areas are closely linked, stressed the ECDC. As the pandemic moves towards a phase of reduced intensity, the report aims to highlight follow-up actions that could contribute to improved pandemic preparedness in Europe.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has taught us valuable lessons and it is important to review and evaluate our actions to see what has worked and what has not,” said ECDC Germany Director Andrea Ammon. There is a need to be better prepared for future health crises, for example by strengthening the health workforce, better surveillance of infectious diseases and promoting cooperation between organizations, countries and regions.

The Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus reached Europe at the beginning of 2020 and then spread extremely quickly. Numerous countries initially reacted with significant restrictions on public life and the closure of their borders. Thanks to the record-breaking development of corona vaccines, it was ultimately possible to largely push back the virus in 2022.

warning function of Corona-App expires

Sunday, April 30, 2023, 3:50 p.m.: The function for mutual warnings in the federal corona app, which has been used millions of times, will expire on Sunday. As of this Monday, it will no longer be possible to warn others after a positive test and receive a red alert after “risk encounters”, as announced by the Federal Ministry of Health. In view of the more relaxed corona situation, the app should then go into “sleep mode” on June 1 and will no longer be updated for the time being. But you can keep them on your cell phone to continue using electronic vaccination certificates.

According to the app makers, there were a total of a good nine million people who used the app to issue more than 270 million warnings after a positive test. Since it was launched on June 16, 2020, the app has been downloaded more than 48 million times, and up to 35 million have actively used the application. The distance and duration of encounters between smartphones with an installed app were determined. According to the ministry, the app can be “awakened” from sleep mode promptly if the pandemic situation becomes more critical again.

Corona-Review: Virologist Klaus Stöhr accuses politicians of refusal

Saturday, April 29, 9:26 am: The virologist Klaus Stöhr criticizes the unwillingness of the traffic light coalition to review the corona policy. Stöhr told the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” (NOZ): “My impression is that the parties desperately hope not to be responsible for the government in the next pandemic. I can’t explain my refusal otherwise. I have no understanding for that. “You have to desperately draw the right conclusions from the past in order to be better prepared for the next pandemic.”

Stöhr firmly rejects fears, such as those expressed by Greens health expert Janosch Dahmen, that a reappraisal could further divide society. “If Mr. Dahmen is afraid of the critical discourse, he probably shouldn’t have gone into politics. Every analysis potentially also leads to an argument: also a backward-looking pandemic processing. But that is also necessary.”

Stöhr is one of the initiators of a letter from numerous doctors and other experts to the federal government calling for a systematic scientific review of the corona policy. “There is a social and political responsibility to learn from the pandemic. You also owe it to the taxpayer, who contributed about 5,300 euros per capita to the measures. Anyone who doesn’t want to learn from their mistakes will repeat them,” Stöhr told the NOZ.

The aim of such a commission should be “to bring Germany’s pandemic plan up to date”. “It can’t be that those responsible have to fall back on the current plan in the next pandemic. The costs of not doing this will be much higher than the expenses for a commission,” Stöhr warned. A selective processing, such as with the current school studies, is not enough.

You can read older news about the corona pandemic on the following pages.