Basing the rationale for the measures on their intuitive theories of disease and transmission, most participants substantiated the necessity of the rules with the aim to reduce Corona.
The visibility of the disease-causing agent served Yara as a tool to help her grasp the pandemic situation when she explained why the rules were needed:
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Y: [We need the rules] so that the Corona becomes less and less, and then at some point, it is no longer to be seen, so it has disappeared.
CA: … Where can you see it now …?
Y: I think it was in the microscope.
CA: … And you’re saying when it's no longer visible, it's gone?
Y: Yes.
(Yara, Stade)
Linking her own explanatory model with vocabulary she knew from other biomedical contexts, Yara created her own intuitive causality. By connecting it to the importance of the measures, the abstract situation of the pandemic became more relatable to her everyday life.
Lisa connected the measures to her own theory of the virus’ origin, reversing the necessity to mind hand hygiene:
L: Because that's probably why the virus came into being.
CA: Why?
L: Well, … because people didn't wash their hands. Could be true, at least.
(Lisa, Stade)
Correspondingly, several children explained that contagious particles could stick to people’s hands. Since the school’s policies required the children to wash their hands at the beginning of each school day, after the breaks, and before touching any objects belonging to the school, hand hygiene was among the measures most children found essential to counter the spread of Corona.
Moreover, the children in Stade explained that the school’s Corona measures prohibited passing around materials like pens and erasers from their own possession since these could be mediums of contraction. Instead, the school provided a box of disinfected items that children might need.
In line with this explanation, Saada inferred that there must be specific criteria that determined the contagiousness of an item, suggesting that it depended on the duration of contact and the number of people who had touched it:
So, the pens, you write with them, you always hold them; for example, I have this pen now, I always hold it and then someone comes and says ‘Lend me a pen!’. I lend him a pen, he would touch it himself, and I would also touch it myself. And I find that
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contagious. Because … pens will also be at home; if your parents also have Corona or something, the pens will also accept that, because, for example, my father sometimes needs blue pens to write appointments or something (Saada, Stade).
Equally dominant in the children’s accounts was the connection of the measures and saliva as a material of potential transmission. Here, many reasoned that by catching saliva droplets, the masks prevented the virus from reaching others, concluding that “that's why it's better to wear the mask so that the virus doesn't fly there and infect people” (Amal, Stade).
Although several children emphasised that medical masks were safer than textile masks, they did not distinguish between the protection the different types of medical masks provided. However, the rules where masks had to be worn varied between the schools and changed throughout the research. Thus, the models of explanation about the rules shifted as well. Lukas and Paula got into an emotional debate about the importance of wearing masks:
P: When it was still possible to take off the mask, we used to joke that we had the mask on at the beginning, and then we would say: ‘Quickly take off the mask’ instead of
‘Quickly put on the mask!’ So it was the opposite of what it should be now.
L: So we weren't joking at all because we know how important the rules are for the school to function. See, Paula? Actually, if someone takes off the mask on purpose, then the whole class has to be quarantined, the group.
(Paula and Lukas, Berlin)
Despite Lukas’ strong objection, several participants agreed that the masks were challenging. Not only did they make it difficult to breathe; they also blocked children’s visual field, made them sweat when playing and created difficulties in communication as people wearing a mask were more difficult to understand. At the same time, several participants reasoned that the mask protected the person wearing it from inhaling the potentially contaminated air, thus hindering transmission. Liam summarised:
L: When someone does not have a mask, and then they cough, then the bacteria come out of their mouth; then someone else breathes it in.
CA:… And how do you protect yourself from it?
L: By keeping your distance and wearing a mask.
(Liam, Berlin)
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While some children built this line of argumentation on an abstract understanding of the air being “dangerous” (Meera, Stade), Paula and Lukas elaborated on the role of aerosols, concluding that it was crucial to wear masks and ventilate rooms:
L: …the windows [in class] are sometimes wide open; sometimes they are a bit more closed but mostly wide open. …
CA: … Why are they open …?
L: Because of the aerosols. …
P: So aerosols are very small, fine particles that float around in the air when someone exhales; for example, when they breathe out, then they are also there. Sometimes, if you had Corona, small virus particles could be contained in it and would then float in the air for hours, and you could infect yourself with them. And that's why there are masks.
(Paula and Lukas, Berlin)
Connecting it to their understanding that Corona could be contracted when inhaling someone else’s air, they explained that coming too close to others could lead to transmission. Some children added that close contact with others only comprised the risk of contagion if this person had Corona:
Does one get Corona … if one does not wash hands and goes very close to others and … if I now [come] to you, some of my air comes to you because maybe I have Corona, and you have it now, too (Saada, Stade).