The news of the day is that there is nothing new. Yes, “the infection dynamics are developing increasingly worrying,” said State Chancellor Florian Herrmann (CSU) on Tuesday after the cabinet meeting. But, no, “we didn’t take any action today”. The state government has decided that everything will stay the same – and has extended the current infection protection ordinance until November 24th. But is that enough?
The infection numbers in Bavaria are running away, sometimes much faster than elsewhere in Germany, especially in the southeast of the Free State. The highest incidences on Tuesday were in the districts of Mühldorf (593), Miesbach (434), Traunstein (489), Berchtesgadener Land (480) and Straubing-Bogen (457). According to the State Office for Health and Food Safety (LGL), the incidence across Bavaria was 187 – well above the national average (113) and the value from a week ago (112.9). The district councilors and mayors of the ten regions most severely affected took part in the cabinet meeting to discuss the aggravated situation. “Neither the state government nor the colleagues on site want a lockdown,” assures State Chancellor Herrmann afterwards. And: “We don’t want a lockdown for unvaccinated people either.”
For weeks, the state chancellery and the Ministry of Health have been saying that it is not considered expedient to set new restrictions as long as the so-called hospital traffic light is relatively stable on green. “No quick fixes,” says Herrmann on Tuesday too. The situation will be monitored “in the next one or two weeks”. A reporter wants to know whether the state government is a little too relaxed about that? “Relaxed is perhaps the wrong expression,” says Herrmann. Sure, you are approaching the traffic light colors yellow and red. But “not in giant steps”.
Intensive care patients should be able to be moved across Bavaria
It was 55 days on Tuesday that the Free State installed the hospital traffic lights. Since then, the seven-day incidence has no longer been the central benchmark for further pandemic restrictions, but the occupancy rate of the hospitals. If there are more than 1200 people with a corona disease in clinics across Bavaria within seven days, the traffic light turns yellow. If more than 600 people are in intensive care units because of Covid-19 during this period, the traffic light turns red. So much for color theory. What specifically happens to yellow and especially to red has been open for 55 days. And so it stays that way.
As of Tuesday, there were a total of 397 people in clinics due to Corona in the past seven days, and 339 intensive care beds were occupied in the same period. The two values rose by around 50 and 30 percent respectively within a week. And there is little to suggest that this dynamic will weaken in the short term. Despite these prospects and although the cabinet has not decided on any additional measures, Andreas März (CSU), Lord Mayor of the notorious Corona hotspot Rosenheim, is quite satisfied with the meeting. After the joint analysis, he is hoping that the state government will provide “recommendations for action that will then take effect throughout Bavaria”.
The hospital traffic light, which is green across the country, but has been glowing deep red in the southeast for weeks, believes March “makes sense if we also get the supraregional transfer of intensive care patients working”. If all clinics in the region are full, it is not enough that the reintroduced hospital coordinators can only arrange transfers within an emergency service district. The fact that coordination is now also taking place at the district level points in the right direction for Rosenheim’s District Administrator Otto Lederer (CSU). It is important that the laying work across Bavaria is quicker and less complicated, says Lederer. Only then would the Bavaria-wide hospital traffic lights make sense. In Lederer’s eyes, it is of secondary importance whether it is necessary to declare the disaster again.
The state government is calling for uniform regulations throughout Germany
A year ago, the state government had dictated a local lockdown to the district administrator of Berchtesgadener Land, Bernhard Kern (CSU), with far lower incidences than today. “You got enough beatings for him,” says Kern. It could not be acceptable that every district with its health department tinkered with its own solutions in the quiet little room. “We now need solutions from you,” according to Kern, was the joint demand of the district administrators to the state government. The toolbox of measures that are the same throughout Bavaria, which Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU) has been talking about for a long time, “has to go now” so that the individual districts and regions can use them.
Holetschek only gives a very limited view of what could be in the toolbox. After the autumn break, he could “well imagine” tightening the mask requirement at schools for a limited time again. However, says State Chancellor Herrmann: “Without a legal basis, we cannot take any protective measures.” He called on the federal government to extend the “epidemic situation of national scope” beyond November 25 or to create a new legal basis for anti-corona measures. For Prime Minister Markus Söder and his CSU, a uniform solution across Germany could have the advantage of avoiding further conflicts with the Free Voters. The coalition partner of the CSU is sometimes critical of the new restrictions.
As the reason for the regionally different pandemic situation in Bavaria, Herrmann cites a “correlation” between regionally in some cases “low vaccination rate and outbreak events”. Higher mobility near the border is also one of the reasons why the incidences on the southern and eastern fringes of Bavaria are relatively high.