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Germany: Tempers Flare Over Mask Requirement

  • August 20, 2020

Calls for More Checks

Karl Lauterbach, the SPD’s leading health expert, has demanded “consistent checks” on the mask requirement and has argued that existing policies need to be further tightened. “There needs to be a mask requirement in the most vulnerable places, where there are frequent gatherings of young people with lots of alcohol. I am referring to places like Hasenheide in Berlin or Brüsseler Platz (a square in Cologne). The danger of infection is particularly high there,” says Lauterbach.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn says he sees no reason to intervene in the confusion surrounding the differing mask requirements. In a federalist system, he says, it’s a matter for the states. Spahn’s focus has been on the voluntary use of masks as well as a 10-million euro Health Ministry public awareness campaign with ads emphasizing social distancing, hand-washing and other hygienic measures and the wearing of masks everyday.” The campaign has been running at 370 gas stations around the country on on close to 60,000 monitors in electronics stores, hair salons and restaurants. No one can say for sure whether it is having an impact.

And if the compulsory mask requirement were to be expanded into other areas of public life, it would also result in the need for more supplies. Currently, there is an abundance of masks, and all are imported. Spahn had actually planned back in April to boost domestic production in order to avoid the threat of the kind of shortfall in mask supplies seen in the spring. Some 46 vendors were expected to supply the ministry’s inventory with 10 million high-quality FFP2 masks and 40 million simple surgical masks a week. The first delivery date was August 8. But Germany’s independent supplies of masks are a pure illusion. So far, only 1.7 million masks have been delivered, according to the ministry. Few of the selected manufacturers appear to be in a position to actually produce the quantities that have been promised.

Back To School

And this at a moment that could be decisive in Germany’s efforts to fight COVID-19. Summer vacation is coming to an end, students are returning to a relatively normal school life after months of school closures and online lessons. It raises the question of how students and teachers can best be protected. The kind of pressure officials are under is obvious from their decisions.

Initially, Yvonne Gebauer, North Rhine-Westphalia’s education minister, showed little interest in compulsory masks during classes, but one week before school started, she surprised parents, teachers and students alike by implementing the rule. In doing so, she pointed to the numbers of infections. And, indeed, the highest numbers of new cases have been in that state.

So far, though, the education ministers of the 16 German states have been unable to find a consensus on a common mask policy. In Berlin, masks are required outside of classrooms in closed spaces. In Hamburg, they are required on entire campuses, including schoolyards. In Baden-Württemberg, pupils in the fifth grade and up are required to wear masks; but in Lower Saxony and Bavaria, primary school students are also obligated to wear them. Schleswig-Holstein strongly recommends masks but does not require students to wear them. In Saxony, schools are allowed to set their own policy.

A Vast Experiment

Last Wednesday, on the first day back to school after the summer vacation, a parade of children wearing masks with everything from checkered to skulls to flower patterns could be seen at 7:50 a.m. at the Janusz Korzak Comprehensive School in Gütersloh.

The pupils also wore their masks inside their classrooms. “Welcome!” a teacher said in greeting at the entrance, his own face half covered with a mask. He held a small box in his hand with fabric masks that had been sewn by school parents that he could distribute to children arriving without their own.

“I was even allowed to take the mask off in court,” says Lydia Wiesbrock, a mother and lawyer, who was taking her daughter to school on Wednesday. “I think the requirement to wear masks in class is terrible. The kids are supposed to sit in class for hours at a time in this hot weather.” Wiesbrock feels bad for both the students and the teachers. Educators will now have to explain the new coronavirus containment measures, promote understanding and perhaps even admonish students who flout the rules. The first lessons will be devoted to the subject.

“What worries me,” says school principle Heidrun Elbracht, “is that we basically have a laboratory situation here at school. No matter how much care we take to ensure that the children here wear their masks and that different classes don’t mix, it’s an illusion to expect them to adhere to the rules once they have left the campus. They will hang out with their buddies, which isn’t forbidden right now.”

Gütersloh has already been hit twice as it is. As with all schools in Germany, those in Gütersloh were closed in mid-March, with classes initially moving online. At the end of April, students were able to partly return to their classrooms, but the schools in Gütersloh, including the Janusz-Korzak Comprehensive School, had to shutter again on June 18 following a major coronavirus outbreak at a local meat processing plant.

Lawsuits Against Mask Requirement

The mask requirement is also a source of agitation beyond North Rhine-Westphalia — also for educators. “I’m glad different rules apply in Hamburg,” says Mirjam Kaune, a teacher at the Alter Teichweg primary and district school. “I use facial expressions a lot in class. If I have to wear a mask all the time, I can’t even laugh with the kids anymore.”

Heinz-Peter Meidinger, president of the German Teachers’ Association and the long-time head of a Bavarian high school, on the other hand, maintains a tougher stance on the mask requirement. He feels the entire country should be following North Rhine-Westphalia’s example. “Masks in the classroom might not be ideal for a lively teaching experience,” Meidinger told the news agency DPA, “but it’s a sacrifice that has to be made if we are going to have full instruction again.” For Stefan Belau, the state chair of the Educators’ Association (VBE) in North Rhine-Westphalia, compulsory masks are the price that has to be paid for large classes to be held in small rooms.

In Hamburg, one plaintiff even sued to have the mask requirement lifted – but unsuccessfully so far. A local court ruled in August against lifting the mask requirement, arguing that the state authorities “have considerable scope for the assessment, evaluation and design of efforts to fulfill their duty to protect.” The ruling came the same day that schools reopened in the city-state after summer vacation. In Hamburg, classes take place in fixed groups that, if possible, are not supposed to mix with others – an approach that other states are also following.

In Thuringia, on the other hand, one plaintiff did prevail in a lawsuit aimed at lifting the mask requirement in class. The state Education Ministry had only planned to require students to wear masks in common areas of the schools, but the city of Jena wanted a stricter policy and decided to apply a mask requirement for lessons as well. “It’s nonsensical, unreasonable and inhumane,” says Peter Häuser, the director of a local Waldorf School who sued over the decision. “Teachers can’t do lessons with a mask – they’re just cooping kids up in the classroom,” Häuser says.

How normal will life be again in the next few weeks, how restricted, and are the masks really helping with anything? For the retail trade, the mask has been a curse and a blessing.

Gloom Is Prevailing

In addition to Germans’ general reluctance to spend, many consider the mask requirement to be the greatest obstacle to getting things going again. The latest figures from Hystreet, a company that measures pedestrian frequencies in retail areas, downtowns and high streets have nearly recovered to pre-corona levels. And in some segments of the retail industry, revenues are already surpassing pre-corona levels. But the data also shows that it’s everyday necessities that people are stocking up on – they aren’t going on big shopping sprees. Despite the reopening of stores as part of a loosening of the lockdown, fashion retailers still showed revenues that were 16 percent lower than the previous year in June.

“The masks have been a stroke of fortune for the textiles industry,” says Martin Fassnacht, a professor of marketing at the Otto Beisheim School of Management in Düsseldorf. He says the industry was already performing badly prior to the coronavirus, and the crisis sparked by it has merely exacerbated the situation. Sales of masks have at least provided some relief. “Masks are becoming a fashion accessory,” says Fassnacht. He says they could even become a source of revenues for the industry more important than even ties.

Overall, though, the gloom is tending to prevail in the industry. The mask requirement “inhibits people’s desire to go on shopping sprees or make spontaneous purchases. Customers tend to go in and out of shops faster,” says Stefan Genth, the head of the German Retail Association (HDE).

Genth has a quandary on his hands: On the one, there’s the concern about sales leading up to the holiday season. On the other, though, he can’t push too loudly for the lifting of the mask requirement because then he would run the danger of frightening away the “other half of customers” for whom the risk in the shops would be too high without protection.

Instead, “a broad societal consensus is needed to determine the right time to end the compulsory mask requirement,” says Genth. He says he really can’t say when that time will come, but nobody can, really.

 “More Complex and Strenuous”

A research team at the University of Bamberg wanted to find out how the wearing of masks alters a society, especially when it comes to education. One of their findings is that emotions like joy, disgust or sadness are less often recognized when people wear masks. At the same time, gestures play a greater role, making communication “more complex and strenuous,” says Rolf van Dick, the head of the social psychology department at Frankfurt’s Goethe University. Nonetheless, he says, “I’m surprised how quickly wearing the mask has become accepted.”

Before the coronavirus, masks primarily created distance. But now they are helping us to reduce those distances. “If you wear a mask, you can get closer rather than having to keep your distance,” says van Dick. “It opens us up to each other again by concealing a part of us.”

It’s still too early to tell if masks will become the symbol of success in a fight against a pandemic we have been working on as a society.

Article source: https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/tempers-flare-over-german-mask-requirement-a-3edea99d-3563-43e6-8401-4671a6671816#ref=rss

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