Berlin – Today in the course of the day the controversial 2G rule of the Berlin Senate is to be corrected and the sentence added: “Exceptions are children under the age of 12.” “We are pleased that children under the age of 12 are now given greater thought. But what about the unvaccinated adolescents under the age of 17? I find it difficult that they can continue to be excluded from social life, ”says Andrea Martin, the Berlin spokeswoman for the nationwide and now extremely influential“ Family Initiative ”.
“To be clear, we are not against vaccinating young people, but against the fact that such massive political pressure is exerted on this age group. That is the wrong way, instead we should focus on educational work, ”says Martin. “The STIKO’s recommendation that vaccination should not be a prerequisite for social participation is simply ignored.”
A few hours after the Senate decision on Tuesday, the initiative published a fire letter with the title: “Berlin discriminates against children.” – “We were really appalled by these succinct sentences that Health Senator Dilek Kalayci threw in at the press conference: That the 2G rule applies without exception, also for children under the age of 12, “says Andrea Martin,
For many parents it was the famous drop that broke the barrel. “We thought it couldn’t get worse and then it got worse,” says Andrea Martin. After all, families with children had shown solidarity for more than a year, suffered educational gaps, lost salaries, broken friendships and career ends in order to protect human lives until there was a vaccination offer for everyone.
“Children sit tested with masks twice a week in draughty classrooms because the infrastructural measures to combat pandemic in schools have been more than poorly implemented,” complains the fire letter. “And precisely these families with children who have put back 18 months, these very families should now stay outside so that the vaccinated, for whom they have shown solidarity for so long and still can, enjoy the newly won freedom of action at full tables without masks can? ”The authors of the letter saw this as a deep injustice – and as a continuation of a policy in which children are forced to protect adults – and not the other way around.
In order to demonstrate against this, the initiative is calling for a demonstration in front of the Red City Hall on Sunday at 3 p.m. The initiative, which was founded during the Corona period to give a voice to the needs and interests of children and families, is supported by many well-known doctors, psychologists and lawyers. She recently turned again in an open letter to the Chancellor, Minister of Education and Family Affairs. At the demonstration they want to emphasize their demands: after the guarantee of classroom teaching, the end of mass tests in schools and the equality of children and adolescents with those who have recovered and those who have been vaccinated.
Current demands of the “Family Initiative”:
- Normality for children and adolescents now with regular operation in educational and care facilities and in leisure activities – no ifs or buts.
- Child-friendly hygiene measures in schools and community facilities that take into account the learning and development opportunities and the well-being of children and adolescents as well as the suspected containment benefit.
- Termination of ineffective, extremely costly and stressful tests in asymptomatic children without a specific reason.
- Avoidance of excessive and disproportionate quarantine rules. The equality of all children and adolescents with vaccinated and convalescent adults.
- The access of children and young people to participation in education, culture and other activities of social life must not be made dependent on the existence of a vaccination.