Status: 02.11.2021 6:24 p.m.
The coronavirus is particularly dangerous for old and immunocompromised people. Several federal states have therefore decided to tighten testing requirements for employees in nursing homes and hospitals.
Several federal states are tightening the corona test obligations for staff in nursing homes and clinics. In Brandenburg, unvaccinated employees of care facilities with a seven-day incidence of 100 or more will have to be tested daily, as the State Chancellery in Potsdam announced. The background to this is a corona outbreak in a senior citizens’ home in Brandenburg, which has so far killed eleven residents. According to media reports, only half of the nursing staff there are said to have been vaccinated.
The new regulation should come into force this week. Brandenburg’s Minister of Health Ursula Nonnenmacher said that residents in nursing homes and the very old have a particularly high risk of serious and fatal illnesses.
Obligation to test partly also for vaccinated persons
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania also wants to introduce compulsory daily tests from next week for employees in care facilities who have not been vaccinated or have recovered. In Baden-Württemberg, the daily compulsory test for non-vaccinated nurses has been in effect for a long time. Those who have been vaccinated or recovered, however, should be tested once a week, according to the local Ministry of Health. In Bavaria, on the other hand, tests have been compulsory since August for unvaccinated or unconcealed employees in nursing homes on at least two different days per week on which they are assigned to work, as the Bavarian Ministry of Health announced.
In Rhineland-Palatinate, non-vaccinated employees of clinics, old people’s and care facilities will be required to have a daily test from next week. This is provided for in the country’s new anti-corona regulation presented today. According to Health Minister Clemens Hoch, self-tests are also allowed. However, it must be ensured that the services can check whether the tests have actually been carried out properly.
“Human lives are at stake”
In view of the increasing number of corona outbreaks in care facilities and hospitals, the social association VdK demanded mandatory testing for all visitors and employees. VdK President Verena Bentele said that such an obligation was urgently necessary regardless of the vaccination status: “Human lives are at stake.”
Bentele called on politicians to adopt such a test obligation. According to this, facility managers and clinic directors would have to ensure that all visitors and employees were offered free tests and only those who tested negative were allowed access, said the VdK President.