Status: 07/07/2021 9:16 a.m.
Health Minister Spahn makes the lifting of the corona restrictions dependent on a high vaccination rate. The mask requirement will still take a while. Justice Minister Lambrecht sees it similarly.
In the debate about the lifting of the corona measures, Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn pleaded for caution. With a view to autumn and winter, it will still need a mask requirement indoors, so the CDU politician in ARD morning magazine.
However, Spahn emphasized: “Being vaccinated makes a difference.” Anyone who wants to do a lot, for example to the stadium or to parties and visit the family, should get vaccinated. “Where there is not enough vaccination, there will be very, very many infections in the population groups,” said the Minister of Health. He hopes that a “vaccination jolt” will go through Germany in the summer. The “basic measures”, i.e. AHA rules and the mask requirement, would be retained for “a while”.
Jens Spahn, CDU, Federal Minister of Health, “Vaccination has an effect. Not only for yourself, also for everyone else”
Morning magazine, 7/7/2021
Lambrecht: Little interference with fundamental rights
Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht also initially refused to lift the mask requirement indoors. “Even a vaccination does not offer one hundred percent protection against the transmission of the virus, as has recently been shown by the spread of the Delta variant in some countries,” said the SPD politician in the newspapers of the Funke media group. “For the time being, some precautionary measures remain useful for vaccinated people, such as wearing a mask indoors.”
From the Justice Minister’s point of view, these basic hygiene measures only interfere with fundamental rights to a relatively minor extent. “It would also hardly be practical to distinguish between vaccinated and unvaccinated people, for example in local public transport or in the supermarket,” said Lambrecht.
Maas for an early end to the restrictions
On Tuesday, Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas spoke out in favor of lifting all corona restrictions – as soon as all people in Germany have received a vaccination offer. This is to be expected in the course of August, Maas told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. He sees no longer any legal or political justification for “any restriction” if everyone in Germany has a vaccination offer.
Announcements by Chancellor Angela Merkel and Health Minister Spahn support the move: Merkel had promised that all people in Germany should receive a vaccination offer by September 21. In the meantime, Spahn assumes that this may be the case as early as the end of July.
At the beginning of June, the chairman of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, Andreas Gassen, called for the end of all corona measures for completely vaccinated people.
Lauterbach is reminiscent of the goal of herd immunity
SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach recalled in the Funke newspapers at which vaccination rate a herd immunity is achieved: “Can we manage to vaccinate 85 percent of adults, or do we not? A lot will depend on that. then the abolition of the mask requirement will not work, “said Lauterbach. Experts assume that such vaccination quotas are only possible if children and young people are vaccinated across the board.
Health Minister Spahn said in the Deutschlandfunk, there is a high level of willingness among the elderly, so that a vaccination rate of 90 percent will soon be achieved among those over 60. With the twelve- to 59-year-olds, however, you still have to advertise in order to achieve a rate of 85 percent. They would have to be given low-threshold vaccination offers, for example on the market square, the sports field or next to mosques and churches. There is no general vaccination recommendation for children and adolescents from the age of twelve in Germany. The Standing Vaccination Commission (STIKO) recommends vaccinations only for 12 to 17 year olds with certain pre-existing conditions.
In Germany, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute and the Federal Ministry of Health (as of July 6th), 39.3 percent of people are currently fully vaccinated and 56.8 percent at least once vaccinated against the coronavirus. Bremen has the highest vaccination rate among the federal states with 65.5 percent vaccinated at least once. The rate is lowest in Saxony at 48.5 percent. According to Health Minister Spahn, almost ten percent of the 12 to 18 year olds nationwide have been vaccinated at least once.