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SCHOOLS

Schools openings will lead to more children getting longterm Covid, German doctor warns

As government data shows that an increasing number of children are becoming infected with the coronavirus, a paediatric researcher from Freiburg University has said that more cases of "long Covid" are already being reported in this age group.

Published: 26 March 2021 10:28 CET
Schools openings will lead to more children getting longterm Covid, German doctor warns
A pupil in NRW uses an antigen test. Federico Gambarini/dpa

“As a result of the relaxation of lockdown measures, we expect to treat more young people affected with mostly diffuse, longer-lasting health problems,” Markus Hufnagel from the Centre for Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at the University Hospital of Freiburg told DPA. 

Since February, primary school children have been able to attend class again in Germany, while high school children have also returned to school in some parts of the country in March.

This has contributed to an increased level of infections in these age groups, epidemiologists say.

This graph from DPA shows cases increasing among minors by mid-March, 2021.

Coronavirus infections are often asymptomatic in children, while severe courses of the disease are rare even in adolescents, Hufnagel said. 

Nevertheless, so-called long Covid – whereby people suffer symptoms months after recovering from the initial infection – has also been reported in children.

READ MORE: Bavaria plans 100 million rapid Covid tests to allow all pupils to return to school

“The clinical picture is very variable,” said Hufnagel, who lists possible consequences for children as including chronic exhaustion, general reduction in performance, and joint and muscle pain. 

“In general, the symptoms are not specific to an infection with Sars-CoV-2. We have seen similar persistent health effects after infections with other viruses such as mononucleosis,” he explained.

But he stressed that the health effects should not be underestimated.

“The problem is currently getting bigger rather than smaller, we are already seeing significantly more post-Covid cases. These tend to be patients in adolescence; cases in children ten years of age and younger are much rarer.” 

Although there is little good data from Germany on this topic, a study in households where coronavirus cases had been identified showed that five percent of children and adolescents under the age of 14 still had at least one symptom three months after infection.

Hufnagel added though, that the generally stressful situation created by the pandemic is also playing a role in the occurrence of persistent effects – not just the virus itself. 

“The lockdown is a big stress factor. When the pandemic situation improves, the signs of fatigue should also improve, at least in some of those affected.”

SEE ALSO: Germany urges ‘caution’ as Covid-19 infections climb and schools reopen

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DISCRIMINATION

Schools in Sweden discriminate against parents with Arabic names: study

Parents with Arabic-sounding names get a less friendly response and less help when choosing schools in Sweden, according to a new study from the University of Uppsala.

Published: 6 April 2022 12:05 CEST
Schools in Sweden discriminate against parents with Arabic names: study

In one of the largest discrimination experiments ever carried out in the country, 3,430 primary schools were contacted via email by a false parent who wanted to know more about the school. The parent left information about their name and profession.

In the email, the false parent stated that they were interested in placing their child at the school, and questions were asked about the school’s profile, queue length, and how the application process worked. The parent was either low-educated (nursing assistant) or highly educated (dentist). Some parents gave Swedish names and others gave “Arabic-sounding” names.

The report’s author, Jonas Larsson Taghizadeh said that the study had demonstrated “relatively large and statistically significant negative effects” for the fictional Arabic parents. 

“Our results show that responses to emails signed with Arabic names from school principals are less friendly, are less likely to indicate that there are open slots, and are less likely to contain positive information about the school,” he told The Local. 

READ ALSO: Men with foreign names face job discrimination in Sweden: study

The email responses received by the fictional Arabic parents were rated five percent less friendly than those received by the fictional Swedish parents, schools were 3.2 percentage points less likely to tell Arabic parents that there were open slots at the school, and were 3.9 percentage points less likely to include positive information about the municipality or the school. 

There was no statistically significant difference in the response rate and number of questions answered by schools to Swedish or Arabic-sounding parents. 

Taghizadeh said that there was more discrimination against those with a low social-economic status job than against those with an Arabic name, with the worst affected group being those who combined the two. 

“For socioeconomic discrimination, the results are similar, however, here the discrimination effects are somewhat larger,” he told The Local. 

Having a high economic status profession tended to cancel out the negative effects of having an Arabic name. 

“The discrimination effects are substantially important, as they could potentially indirectly influence parents’ school choice decision,” Taghizadeh said.

“Investigating socioeconomic discrimination is also important in itself, as discrimination is seldom studied and as explicit discrimination legislation that bans class-based discrimination is rare in Western countries including Sweden, in contrast to laws against ethnic discrimination.” 

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