Masks in class? Many questions and confusions as Germans go back to school

Germany has seen some 217,000 confirmed cases and 9,200 deaths, and brought down a peak of some 6,000 new daily infections in March to the low hundreds

Masks during class, masks only in the halls, no masks at all. Distance when possible, no distance within same-grade groups, no distance at all.

As Germany's 16 states start sending millions of children back to school in the middle of the global coronavirus pandemic, the country's famous sense of Ordnung has given way to uncertainty, with a hodgepodge of regional regulations that officials acknowledge may or may not work.

There can't, and never will be 100% certainty, said Torsten Kuehne, the official in charge of schools in Pankow, Berlin's most populous district where 45,000 students go back to school Monday.