In view of the rapidly increasing number of infections, the debate is unfolding in Bavaria as to whether corona tests should be free again. In the state parliament, the FDP parliamentary group requested on Wednesday that the state government should “admit its mistake” and return to free antigen rapid tests and PCR tests for everyone “in order to protect us from overloading the health system”. The society is “ethically obliged” to do so, said Dominik Spitzer (FDP) in the run-up to the debate. The Greens also called for a return to free rapid antigen tests. Beate Merk (CSU), on the other hand, said: “The remedy against corona is called vaccination” and is free, while testing is again expensive and “not the solution”. Ultimately, the CSU, Free Voters and SPD rejected the proposals from the FDP and the Greens. An AfD application for free tests also did not get a majority.
It was not until October 11 that the free tests were abolished. A nationwide decision, as Bernhard Seidenath (CSU) emphasizes, to “induce vaccination” for unvaccinated people. FDP man Spitzer regards this goal as a failure. He could “count on one hand” the number of people who currently come to his family doctor’s practice for the first vaccination each week. “The big run” on vaccinations, which the state government had promised itself from tests with costs, did not materialize. In order to mitigate “the approaching winter wave”, free tests are needed again. Before they were abolished, some doctors had warned that an additional gateway for the virus could arise if fewer people were to be tested because the test was too expensive for them. Now that the vaccination rate is only increasing slowly, but the infections are increasing very quickly, some questioners could see themselves confirmed.
A connection between the end of the free tests and the increased number of infections is of course difficult to prove. Seidenath also emphasizes that anyone who has corona symptoms can continue to be tested by a doctor free of charge. Certain groups of people, such as children or pregnant women, are also entitled to free tests. Ruth Waldmann (SPD) also said there were “very extensive exemption rules” from the obligation to pay. But if you don’t want to be vaccinated, you have to live with the fact that tests cost money.
For CSU man Seidenath, it remains “a good compromise” that unvaccinated people have to pay for their tests themselves, but are allowed to “participate in social life” with a negative result. The FDP parliamentarian Spitzer, on the other hand, drew attention to those who are increasingly “meeting privately and infecting without being tested,” including those who have been vaccinated. In addition, Spitzer referred to the positive rate in the corona tests, which has recently increased significantly. “It’s a bit scary,” he said.
Unlike the CSU, the coalition partner, the Free Voters, is known to be sympathetic to free tests. But there is “no majority” in the coalition, said FW MP Susann Enders. On the other hand, no one in your parliamentary group wants the Free State to take on the costs. The federal government has to pay for that, we hear from FW circles, in a traffic light coalition the FDP and the Greens would now have the chance to enforce this in Berlin.