Status: 12/30/2022 5:59 p.m
Minister of Health Lauterbach is sticking to it: The nationwide corona requirements will not be collected early. The clinics are too full for that. Kassenärzte boss Gassen, on the other hand, called for an end to the protective measures.
Despite calls from federal politicians to end the mask and isolation requirements immediately, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach wants to stick to the measures. From his point of view, the current corona virus situation cannot yet give the all-clear. He wants to leave the nationwide requirements in force.
Apparently no new dangerous variants are emerging, says the SPD politician. Despite this development, the clinics are full. And there are still around 100 to 140 deaths a day and a lot of cases of long-Covid. “Thus, the situation in the current winter wave is no different than when we passed the Infection Protection Act in its current form.” Changes to it are not planned in the short term, nor are they to be expected.
Drosten sees the end of the pandemic
The federal corona rules are stipulated by law until April 7th, but can be overturned earlier. The requirements prescribe masks for passengers in long-distance public transport and visitors to hospitals and nursing homes as well as doctor’s offices. Infected people must be isolated for five days. Other measures are at the discretion of the federal states.
Most recently, the chief virologist at the Charite University Hospital in Berlin, Christian Drosten, spoke of an end to the pandemic in view of the population’s immunity. The immunity against Sars-CoV-2 will be so broad and resilient after the winter that the virus can hardly get through in the summer, he told the “Tagesspiegel”. The intensive care physician Christian Karagiannidis made a similar statement in the editorial network Germany (RND).
Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann then called on Monday to end “the last corona protection measures”. Lauterbach rejected this suggestion even then, citing full clinics, overworked staff and excess mortality. Chancellor Olaf Scholz insisted on the legal situation and thus supported Lauterbach.
Alleys against general mask requirement
The head of the panel doctors, Andreas Gassen, does not share Lauterbach’s assessment. Like Minister of Justice Buschmann, he now called for an end to all remaining corona requirements. “Thanks to the good immunity of the population, thanks to the vaccinations and infections that have occurred, we have been experiencing a much lower disease burden than in 2021 for months, an endemic disease burden,” Gassen told the “Welt”.
Risk groups can and should continue to protect themselves, but mandatory measures for everyone are no longer necessary. Among other things, the head of the German panel doctors spoke out in favor of abolishing the general statutory mask requirement in medical facilities and leaving the decision to the practices. Not every facility deals with high-risk patients. Gassen added that the initial situation at the ophthalmologist or with the psychotherapist is different than, for example, in an infection consultation with a general practitioner or ENT doctor.
Woidke doesn’t want to go it alone
Brandenburg’s Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke does not reject an end to the nationwide corona rules. “If what Mr. Drosten and many other experts say is true, it makes sense that we can soon do without all measures,” said the SPD politician to the dpa news agency. This step should be “uniformly coordinated nationwide”.
In Bavaria and Saxony-Anhalt, masks are no longer compulsory on local buses and trains. In Schleswig-Holstein it expires by the end of the year. The Brandenburg cabinet had extended the FFP2 mask requirement on public buses and trains in local transport before Christmas until January 11th.