From now on, children and adolescents aged 12 and older can receive the booster vaccination at the municipal vaccination centres and at the open vaccination campaigns starting three months after the first vaccination. This was announced by the City of Bonn on Monday, thus implementing the requirements of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

In addition, the city administration drew attention to the fact that from Friday, 7 January, there will no longer be any open vaccination opportunities without an appointment for first vaccinations of children aged five to twelve years in the Bad Godesberg City Hall. This is because the second vaccinations of children will begin on this day. First vaccinations will then only be carried out with an appointment. Appointments can be made online at www.ciz-bonn.de. The open vaccination option for people 12 years and older will remain.

All information about the Corona vaccination is available on the municipal website www.bonn.de/impfen.

One week before the end of the Christmas holidays in NRW, SPD and Greens demand better precautions against Corona and more planning security before the start of school. "The state government must ensure that all employees in schools and day-care centres receive low-threshold booster vaccination offers," emphasised Greens parliamentary group leader Josefine Paul in Düsseldorf on Monday. In addition, vaccination offers, also at schools, should be expanded for children and adolescents. The Greens also demanded that the "too narrowly limited funding programme for air filters in classrooms" be opened up to all classrooms as well as for other structural measures to protect against infections. The top priority must be to keep day-care centres and schools open, Paul emphasised.

The head of the government of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hendrik Wüst (CDU), agrees. In North Rhine-Westphalia, the course continues to apply: "We want children to have lessons as long as it is at all reasonable - if possible in attendance, if possible in class," he said on ARD's Morgenmagazin. "Children should not suffer again. They have already suffered too much in this pandemic."

They had been able to spend the Christmas holidays under normal conditions, but on 2 January the bad news followed for the residents of the Johanniter-Haus retirement home in Bad Godesberg. Because the Corona virus was detected in eight of the 119 residents, the entire home was closed to visitors until 16 January as a precaution. "We are not yet able to say to what extent the Omikron variant is among them," a spokeswoman for Johanniter GmbH, based in Berlin, announced on Monday. Relatives should only visit the facility in urgent cases. Overall, the situation of the sick residents is stable: some of the infection is progressing without symptoms, others of the affected complain of fatigue and occasional fever, cough and cold, and sometimes also breathing difficulties. Two residents are in hospital, the others are currently being cared for in isolation within the facility.

Of the 123 staff members of the house, which is located in the villa district, two colleagues are also in quarantine, "otherwise there are currently no further quarantine cases within the staff," said the spokeswoman. When asked what the greatest challenges for staff and residents are at the moment, she mentions the psychological strain. Little more could be learned about the situation on site on Monday. All protective measures had been coordinated with the health department and were now being implemented, according to the nursing service management.

The Professional Association of Paediatricians and Adolescents (BVKJ) has called for schools to remain open even if the number of corona cases increases. There are a number of possibilities to avoid school closures despite the increasing pandemic situation, said association president Thomas Fischbach to the "Ärzte Zeitung" (online). For example, existing hygiene concepts must be implemented more consistently and teachers must be trained accordingly. Länder and municipalities should also provide sufficient air filters for the facilities. "The funds for this are there - but they are not yet being used everywhere."

"There is a clear and unequivocal commitment by politicians to consider school closures - if at all - as the very last measure," Fischbach said. "We insist on this commitment." After the Christmas break, pupils have been back in class since Monday in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Brandenburg, Berlin, Saxony and Rhineland-Palatinate. Saarland will follow on Tuesday, Hamburg on Wednesday and - depending on the schools' decision - Thuringia as well. The state ministers of education and cultural affairs plan to discuss the situation at the schools in a video conference on Wednesday.

Original text: dpa/ga

Translation: Mareike Graepel