Status: 02/08/2022 07:49 a.m
After Bavaria’s announcement that it would not initially implement compulsory vaccination for employees in the healthcare sector, the Union now wants to put the brakes on nationwide. But the criticism of it is massive.
The dispute over the statutory corona vaccination requirement for staff in clinics and nursing homes is coming to a head. The Union is pushing for a nationwide suspension of partial vaccination, which will actually take effect from mid-March. “The federal government must realize that the facility-related vaccination requirement is currently hardly feasible,” said the health policy spokesman for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, Tino Sorge, of the “Bild” newspaper.
“The suspension should apply nationwide until key legal and practical questions have been answered,” said Sorge. Among other things, the government must clarify the question of how to deal with personnel that institutions regard as indispensable. “Today it doesn’t look as if the traffic light will succeed in time for March 16.”
Lauterbach rejects postponement
Yesterday, CDU leader Friedrich Merz called for the suspension throughout Germany. Merz accused the federal government of leaving institutions and employees alone with the consequences of this compulsory vaccination. The CDU agreed at the time, but on the assumption that the problems could be solved.
Bavaria’s CSU Prime Minister Markus Söder had previously announced that he would not implement the measure in Bavaria until further notice. This caused criticism from Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach and other representatives of the traffic light coalition. Lauterbach made it clear that the law applies and that he rejects a postponement.
Ramelow criticizes Söder’s solo effort
The FDP health politician Andrew Ullmann spoke of a “egocentric refusal”. “Basically, it’s just a PR trick to take place in the media,” he told the “Augsburger Allgemeine”. Ullmann accused Söder: “If there was a serious interest in implementation issues, he could have worked with the federal and state governments.”
Thuringia’s Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow also criticized Söder for going it alone: ”As Prime Minister, you must not give the impression that you are no longer loyal to the federal government. The situation is already heated. Then he should have put on the brakes beforehand,” he told the editorial network Germany”. Ramelow also said, however, that the law produces contradictions that need to be clarified. Incidentally, “general vaccination would have been better from the outset.”
“Suspension of compulsory vaccination endangers human lives”
The president of the social association VdK, Verena Bentele, told the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” that the protection of the residents of the home was completely out of focus. “There is a law that was passed to protect these people. If it is not implemented due to a lack of controls, human lives will be at risk.”
It is a testament to an “astonishing understanding of democracy when a prime minister, whose party has passed the facility-related vaccination requirement in the Infection Protection Act, now nonchalantly overturns it through the back door”.
Association of towns and municipalities for “time stretching”
The Association of Towns and Municipalities considers a “time extension” to be sensible when implementing partial vaccination in exceptional cases. “If the functionality or ongoing operations are at risk, it may be right to open up additional leeway here,” said general manager Gerd Landsberg to the newspapers of the Funke media group.
Regional differences emerged, some of which impeded “timely implementation”. “While social institutions in North Rhine-Westphalia sometimes report a vaccination rate of 97 percent for their staff, this is obviously different for many institutions in Bavaria. The same should probably also apply to some eastern German states.”
The law passed by the Bundestag and Bundesrat in December stipulates that employees in nursing homes and clinics must submit proof of being vaccinated or recovered by March 15th – or a certificate that they cannot be vaccinated. Employers must inform the health authorities if this does not happen. These may prohibit employment in the facility. The vast majority of the CDU/CSU deputies in the Bundestag had also voted in favor of it.