We, the Network of Safe Education Action Committees in Germany, support the call by British parents for a school strike on Friday, October 1, and are fighting to stop the reckless policy of mass infection of children in schools immediately. It is not only endangering children and young people in the UK, but also here in Germany and around the world.
Lisa Diaz, a mother of two and a member of the group Safe Education for All, is calling on parents to keep their children at home on October 1 and to make their protest known on social media: “We need collective action and we need to keep raising awareness. Because the politicians have failed us. The unions are failing children. The claim that children are not so affected by this is a lie.”
Lisa’s initiative is an important step forward in the fight against the pandemic. We appeal to parents, teachers, educators, students and workers here in Germany to support and expand the strike. The spread of the pandemic can only be stopped if we act ourselves.
The capitalist governments tell us: your children will inevitably become infected. Take it! This is the new “normality”!
We are not ready to accept it! What does it look like, this new “normal” that is being forced upon us? Children and young people are being deliberately infected, suffering unpredictable long-term damage or even dying from COVID-19. Millions of children are losing their teachers, parents and grandparents. Hospitals and children’s wards are permanently overcrowded, nurses and doctors collapse under the pressure. The aggressive virus is given free rein to mutate and spawn new variants.
In the US, nearly 500 children have already died from COVID-19 since the pandemic began, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, including nearly 150 in the last two months alone. In the UK, more than 59,000 children have already been infected in the first two weeks of school after the holidays.
The British government, under Prime Minister Boris Johnson, is allowing the virus to rush through schools without protective measures and openly admits that it wants millions of children and young people to be infected. “Virtually any child unvaccinated is likely to get an infection at some point between 12 and 15” is the brash statement of Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser.
In Germany, too, all the parties in the Bundestag [German parliament] are refusing to contain the pandemic and are giving the virus free rein in schools and workplaces. The state government in Thuringia under Education Minister Helmut Holter of the Left Party is behaving in a particularly criminal manner. Last week, he abolished rapid tests, compulsory masks and also almost all quarantine rules at schools. The mask requirement is now also to be dropped in Berlin and Bavaria.
The infection and death figures will inevitably continue to rise here as well. So far, 27 children and adolescents under the age of 19 and nearly 100 young people between the ages of 20 and 30 have already died from coronavirus, according to official statistics. After the school holidays ended, the incidence among children and young people climbed upwards, especially among 5- to 14-year-olds, almost all of whom are unvaccinated. Nationwide, the incidence is 161.5 per 100,000 (as of September 25). Top of the list is Bremen, with an incidence of 404.8 in this age group, followed by Baden-Württemberg with 213.6, Bavaria with 196, Hesse with 190 and Berlin with 180.
Worldwide, nearly 4.8 million people have officially died from COVID-19, but the true death toll is estimated at more than 15 million. The World Health Organization (WHO) warned in late August that another 236,000 people could die from COVID-19 in Europe by December 1.
This endless loop of pandemic, misery and death that results from the contagion policy is a nightmare for millions of families and must be ended.
A globally coordinated lockdown, combined with a mass vaccination campaign, contact tracing and strict quarantine, would be urgently needed to contain and eradicate COVID-19. But such a strategy is a red flag to the ruling class because it threatens the profit interests of entrepreneurs and shareholders.
That is why appeals to the established parties and trade unions will come to nothing and fall on deaf ears. They are on the other side of the barricade. The scientifically necessary measures against the pandemic can only be carried through if the working class takes up the struggle and organizes itself independently of the trade unions and capitalist parties in action committees as part of the International Workers Alliance of Action Committees .
Join the school strike on October 1, send your statements of support for the strike to bil dung@gleichheit.de or share them in our Facebook group, and register to build Safe Education Action Committees today!