Against the autumn wave
New corona measures: That’s what Lauterbach and Buschmann’s draft law is about
Dispute about the mask requirement: Lauterbach wants to tighten, Buschmann wants to relax
© Kay Nietfeld / DPA
Autumn is coming, a new corona wave is feared. Karl Lauterbach and Marco Buschmann are therefore working on a new version of the Corona regulation. There is again a dispute about the obligation to wear a mask.
At the end of September, some of the previously applicable corona protection measures are due to expire. Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) and Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP) have therefore been struggling for a new edition for weeks. In order to prevent an autumn wave, the federal states should be able to tighten the obligation independently from October. One focus of the debate is the obligation to wear a mask. The cabinet is to decide on this on Wednesday morning. A bill will then be drafted in Parliament.
Lauterbach and Buschmann had already presented the main features of the planned new regulation at the beginning of August. They received criticism from the countries because they wanted to eliminate the mask requirement in certain areas if the last vaccination was not more than three months ago. According to the original draft, there should be exceptions to mask requirements in restaurants. Planned exceptions for newly vaccinated and recovered people were initially planned as mandatory.
Dispute over mask requirement in air traffic
The mask requirement in air traffic could also fuel the debate again. The reason for this is the fuss surrounding the government flight from Scholz and Habeck. Most recently, pictures had appeared showing the two sitting on the plane together with journalists without a mask. The rules in air traffic were already being discussed on Tuesday. FDP faction deputy Alexander Graf Lambsdorff wrote on Twitter that after the pictures of Scholz and Habeck, the mask requirement in “normal” airplanes could not remain. The deputy leader of the Union faction and former Health Minister Jens Spahn said on the program “RTL Direkt” that the rules should be the same: “Either a mask for everyone or no mask for everyone.”
In view of this, the FDP now wants to negotiate again about easing protective measures on airplanes. “As soon as the cabinet has passed the final version of the Infection Protection Act, we will consult with our coalition partners and examine where there is a need for improvement,” said Christian Dürr, FDP parliamentary group leader, to the “Spiegel”. He made a similar statement in the “Augsburger Allgemeine”.
The general manager of the Federal Association of the German Aviation Industry, Matthias von Randow, said about the design of the mask requirement in aircraft to “Bild” (Wednesday): “We do not consider a tightening of the mask requirement to be proportionate and incomprehensible.” Since she does not exist in any other European country, she is “difficult to place today”.
Doctors call for clarity about the mask requirement
The CEO of the German Hospital Society, Gerald Gaß, called for a general clear regulation on the obligation to wear masks: “In the event of high incidences, politicians must decide either to make a general obligation to wear masks indoors and on public transport for everyone or to leave this protective measure to the responsibility of the individual Leaving it to people, as is now common in many European countries,” he told the Rheinische Post. “From the point of view of the hospitals, there should be a general obligation to wear masks in the event of high incidences. We need comprehensible threshold values for the regulations to come into force.”
“There should now be defined concepts that can be applied immediately to the respective situation without having to have long and time-consuming discussions,” said Gernot Marx, President of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI). the newspapers of the Funke media group on Wednesday. For certain situations, there must be “a toolbox” that can be used in certain crisis situations, Marx said. “With a view to autumn and winter, politicians should prepare for various scenarios.”
It has been proven that wearing a mask is still one of the best and most sensible measures to protect yourself from Corona. This applies in particular to interiors.
Countries criticize exceptions to mask requirements
Criticism of the plans of the traffic light coalition was mainly sparked by the plan to eliminate the obligation to wear a mask indoors for people who are fully vaccinated and whose last vaccination was less than three months ago. Critics complained that this could be understood as an invitation to people to be vaccinated every three months. The coalition now wants to convert this requirement into a “can” regulation, the RND newspapers reported. The countries do not necessarily have to implement them. The “can” exception should therefore also apply to people who have recovered. There should still only be a mandatory exception to the mask requirement if the person has just been tested.
Even when defining the criteria for when the states should take further measures, “we states are finally demanding clear information from the federal government,” said Bavaria’s Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU). “Otherwise there is a risk of a split interpretation of the federal regulations in the individual states.”
In the meantime, there have been agreements between the federal and state governments, a spokesman for the Ministry of Health told AFP on Tuesday. Possible differences with the countries could then be cleared up in the parliamentary process.