| Next week, teenagers in Germany’s ground zero for coronavirus will start to head back to school.
The virus hitched a ride into Heinsberg, a rural district of farmland, ponds and brick houses along the Dutch border, in mid-February. An infected couple had unknowingly brought it along with them to a Carnival celebration with hundreds of people. Since then Heinsberg has been Germany’s canary in the coal mine, the place the country watched for what might happen a few weeks into the future. Now it’s a test case again, this time for what happens when you open schools during a pandemic.
Social distancing has almost universally been synonymous with enforced homeschooling—or at least parents making the attempt. “Been homeschooling a six-year-old and eight-year-old for one hour and 11 minutes,” Shonda Rhimes, a television producer, tweeted soon after California schools closed. “Teachers deserve to make a billion dollars a year. Or a week.”
Photographer: Lukas Schulze/Getty Images Europe
Photographer: Lukas Schulze/Getty Images Europe
As countries begin to contemplate life after confinement, politicians and public-health leaders are also debating what to do about schools. Restarting the economy is hard to do when your workforce is trying to schedule conference calls around grammar and algebra lessons.
Governments are dealing with the problem in radically different ways. Denmark opened schools this week, with Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen saying that “no one wants to keep Denmark shut one day longer than is absolutely necessary.” It should be noted that Denmark also shut down earlier than many of its European peers, closing schools on March 12. In the U.K., where schools didn’t close until March 20, there’s no sign they’ll reopen anytime soon.
In Germany, Heinsberg is headed back to class before most of the rest of the country. Chancellor Angela Merkel gave the all-clear this week for schools to gradually reopen in May. In Heinsberg and elsewhere in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, students who are preparing for graduation exams will return on April 23—on a voluntary basis. The state still plans to hold exams.
As might be expected, the decision was unpopular. Some 30,000 people commented on state Premier Armin Laschet’s Instagram post to announce the changes, mostly negatively. “We aren’t guinea pigs,” one wrote. Others worried about spreading the virus to at-risk family members.
As of Friday, 55 people had died in Heinsberg since the fateful Carnival party. Some 1,600 people had been infected. Public health officials have promised to monitor infections closely as the country begins to open up—and they’ll have a canary in the coal mine again in Heinsberg, this time in the schools.—Naomi Kresge |