Dear parents, dear patients!

We continue to receive many inquiries regarding the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
Serious information on the current situation is available from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) at: www.rki.de .

Compared to spring 2020, some data is now available: Fortunately, children and adolescents fall seriously ill significantly less often than adults. However, many children cared for in our clinic suffer from lung disease, immune system weakness, or both. Even though the proportion of children with pre-existing conditions who required inpatient treatment due to Covid-19 was high in some studies, severe or even life-threatening courses of the disease were extremely rare. This is also true for the few cases treated at our hospital so far. This means that the risk of becoming severely ill with the new coronavirus is much lower than with many other viral infections. This is also true for children with pre-existing conditions.

Nevertheless, the generally recommended precautions are important for you and your child, also to avoid infections with other viruses. Please consider the following recommendations:

• Avoid contacts according to public recommendations
• Keep at least 1.5 m distance between you and your child and other people outside the close nuclear family, as far as this is possible for your child due to his or her age.
• Avoid handshaking, hugging, and other close contact with people outside the close nuclear family
• Cough "into the crook of your elbow" when cold symptoms occur
• Wash your hands frequently
• Avoid touching your face
• Wear or your child wears a mouth-nose protection where recommended, if this is age appropriate for your child
• In accordance with public recommendations, attendance at kindergarten and school is, in our opinion, possible for those children who are being treated at our facility for pulmonary and/or immune system conditions.

Please contact us if you have any questions. The continuous therapy that your child receives should be continued unchanged and conscientiously. Active and passive smoking should be avoided at all costs.

Special precautions are taken at our clinic to prevent disease outbreaks. These include:

•  Due to the current low incidence, children and adolescents can be accompanied by both parents when visiting the outpatient clinic. Accompaniment by third parties (e.g.tranlators) is currently also possible in justified cases.
• Children undergoing inpatient treatment may only be accompanied by one parent.
• Parents who accompany their child during treatment must be registered at the main entrance to the Children's Hospital so that any chains of infection can be traced. Swabs for SARS-CoV-2 will be taken from the child and accompanying person upon admission; this practice will be adjusted to current infection counts.
• Unfortunately, visits by (sibling) children/adolescents are not allowed at this time.
• Mouth to nose coverings must be worn consistently in the clinic.
• Children with signs of an infection are only allowed to visit the outpatient clinics in absolutely exceptional cases and after prior consultation. This does not include the emergency room of the children's hospital.
• Accompanying persons with signs of an infection are not allowed to enter the Children's Hospital.

If your child develops a respiratory infection or has had contact with a person who tested positive for COVID-19, an outpatient evaluation and testing should be done close to home according to current RKI recommendations. If your child needs to be treated as an inpatient and/or testing is not possible on an outpatient basis, a telephone consultation should be made with us to determine if an admission/presentation to our clinic is necessary and possible.

Our ward and outpatient operations are currently running normally because there has been no indication of an increased risk of infection within the clinic. If you are concerned about infection and do not wish to keep an appointment, please contact us in advance. Particularly in the case of chronically ill children, the risk of deterioration due to cancelled check-up appointments is probably much higher than the risk of visiting our clinic.

We continue to receive many inquiries by phone and email. Please understand that we may currently need longer to process all inquiries. Due to time constraints, we are usually unable to issue certificates for individual patients regarding school attendance, use of masks etc.

Regarding vaccinations against the Sars-CoV2 virus, we follow the official recommendations:

• Currently, there is no general vaccination recommendation of the STIKO for all children and adolescents from 12 - 17 years, but only for children and adolescents from 12 years with special risk (children with certain pre-existing conditions, such as chronic lung diseases and/or diabetes, children living in the environment of persons at risk who cannot protect themselves, children with a work-related increased risk of exposure). However, this is only a recommendation of the STIKO for Germany. In principle, any child/adolescent whose parents so wish may be vaccinated with Biontech, as this vaccine is licensed from the age of 12. Several vaccine manufacturers report studies that currently include younger children but are not yet completed.
• Due to the overall mild course of the disease in children and lack of data, we do not recommend vaccination outside of the approval in younger children.
• The vaccination is organized by the respective federal state in the designated vaccination centers or through the general practitioners. Vaccination at the MHH is not possible.
• If you need an attestation that your son or daughter aged 12 or over belongs to a risk group, please contact us! 

Please note that at present, patients who are admitted to the pediatric clinic as inpatients or an emergency may only enter the clinic with one adult accompanying them. If in exceptional cases - e.g. for important medical clarification discussions - both parents must be present, we will find a solution.

As you know, new knowledge in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is being gathered worldwide on a daily basis, so recommendations can change rapidly. These recommendations are valid for the state of knowledge on 14.07.2021. We wish you all the best and hope that we could help you with our recommendations.