Conference of Health Ministers: Countries criticize draft corona rules

The federal states have again criticized the draft of the new Infection Protection Act. Bavaria’s Health Minister Holetschek would like a recommendation from the STIKO to prevent a patchwork of rules.

If the corona situation worsens significantly in autumn or winter, according to Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, masks will probably be compulsory indoors again. In a video conference of the federal and state health ministers, Karl Lauterbach said: “It has been made clear that wearing masks indoors should be the rule in a tense pandemic situation”.

At the meeting, several countries criticized the draft of the Infection Protection Act that Lauterbach and Justice Minister Marco Buschmann had presented.

Countries criticize exceptions

The chairwoman of the Conference of Health Ministers (GMK), Saxony-Anhalt’s Minister of Health Petra Grimm-Benne, said after the meeting that two points were particularly important to the states. On the one hand, there should be nationwide criteria as to when certain corona measures should be taken. On the other hand, the previously planned exceptions to the mask requirement should be readjusted.

So far, it is planned that people in restaurants and at cultural and sporting events should be exempted from the mask requirement if they have been vaccinated within the last three months. Grimm-Benne said this was “difficult to understand” and difficult to control.

“In addition, we are not quite sure whether there will actually be a lot of people who have just recovered and who have been vaccinated who can prove it. Because even the vulnerable groups who have already had their fourth vaccination may have already exceeded the three months “, she said. However, the states in the GMK could only make suggestions, decisions would be made in the Bundestag.

Holetschek sees STIKO as having an obligation

Bavaria’s Health Minister Klaus Holetschek appealed to the Standing Vaccination Commission to submit a recommendation that could be used as a guide when developing the new rules. The countries do not shy away from decisions, but they want uniform decision-making bases in order not to create a patchwork of rules, said Holetschek tagesschau24.

This applies to vaccination, i.e. who should be vaccinated when or whether an adapted vaccine can be waited for, and to the parameters used to decide which corona measures should be taken. He would like STIKO to tell the countries how the parameters should be weighted.