Jena with a 7-day incidence of 200, starting Monday, homeschooling will take place

Jena has reached the 7-day incidence of 215 on 11.12.2020, 19 o'clock. On Friday alone, 65 new infections with the SARS-CoV-2 virus were reported to the Health Service until early evening.

This means that a threshold has been exceeded which makes further measures to contain the pandemic unavoidable. The draft of a general decree was submitted to the State Administration Office and the Thuringian Ministry of Social Affairs. It stipulates that starting Monday, December 14th, Jena schools will waive attendance classes and switch to home-based learning. The schools have the possibility to use Monday for an orderly transition to distance learning and to issue tasks and learning contents for the pupils. For pupils in grades 1 to 6, whose parents are unable to provide childcare, childcare in the schools will of course be provided until the beginning of the Christmas holidays.

Already on Thursday, the head of the social department, Eberhard Hertzsch, had asked in a letter to all school directors to renounce attendance lessons. A large number of schools had complied with this request and had prepared the switch to digital content for Monday.

Mayor Christian Gerlitz said: "We are aware of the difficulties that many parents and schools are now facing due to the short-term changeover. However, the number of new infections is rising so rapidly that immediate action is needed. For some time now, our crisis management team has been calling for decisive action from the state of Thuringia. However, these have recently been counteracted by the state. Instead of supporting our way to lead the schools, as an important source of our rapidly increasing number of cases, into voluntary distance learning in an orderly manner, the Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs has recently spread uncertainty about their admissibility. Therefore, we are now following the path of the Sonneberg district, which, with the consent of the Free State, has ordered distance learning by general decree after the incidence of 200 has been exceeded. This was the only way to ensure clarity for parents and teachers.

Since Sunday, infection incidents have been reported at over 30 schools and day-care centres, including 8 facilities that are still under investigation by the Health Department, as a result of which numerous classes and learning groups, teachers and their direct contact persons are currently in quarantine.