“Safety phase” at schools in Austria until the end of February

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The “safety phase” at schools, originally planned to end on January 15, will be extended until February 28. This was stated by the Ministry of Education in a decree to the schools.

This means that compulsory attendance will remain suspended. In addition, regardless of vaccination status, testing will be carried out at least three times a week, masks must be worn throughout the school building and also during lessons (up to lower school mouth-nose protection, from upper school FFP2 mask). In this way, “attendance is to be maintained as a constant,” they say. However, parents can continue to excuse their children for class without a doctor’s certificate.

Rules for infections remain the same
The procedure for infection cases remains unchanged: If there is a single case in a class, classes will continue to be taught in attendance (without the positive child). However, the remaining children must then be tested daily for five days. If another CoV case occurs in this class within three days, distance learning is ordered for the entire class.

According to the new rules, children who have been vaccinated three times, or twice up to the age of eleven, are no longer considered contacts and are not segregated. The same also applies if mask was worn during contact with infected persons. This means that, as a rule, only students who test positive are now quarantined. They can be cleared by PCR test after five days.