New corona rules decided: hospitalization rate instead of incidence

In the future, the seven-day incidence will no longer be the decisive factor in the pandemic, but the hospitalization rate. The Bundestag also decided that employees in daycare centers, schools and nursing homes should be required to provide information on vaccinations.

In the future, the protective measures in the corona pandemic will primarily be based on the number of people who come to hospital because of their infection. The Bundestag passed a new version of the Infection Protection Act, with which the hospitalization rate will become the most important parameter for the measures taken by the federal states to contain the pandemic.

Accordingly, the so-called seven-day incidence of new infections will no longer be the basis for possible corona restrictions. Instead, it should be looked at how high the hospitalization incidence is, which indicates how many patients are admitted to the clinics per 100,000 inhabitants in seven days. According to the Robert Koch Institute, this value was 1.69 nationwide on Tuesday.

Further indicators “such as the number of new infections differentiated under infection-epidemiological aspects”, the available intensive care treatment capacities and the number of people vaccinated should be taken into account when assessing the infection rate.

There should be no nationwide uniform values ​​for this. The state governments are to set threshold values ​​for the hospitalization rate themselves in an ordinance, taking into account the respective inpatient care capacities.

Obligation to provide information about vaccination status

The Bundestag also followed the plans of the federal government with the obligation to provide information about vaccinations: Employers in nursing homes, schools and daycare centers should in future be able to ask employees whether they are vaccinated. This should only apply as long as the Bundestag determines the “epidemic situation of national importance”. The Federal Council should approve the changes on Friday.

This new regulation enables employers to organize the deployment of their employees according to their vaccination status. This can have an impact on duty rosters, for example – and mean that care workers are kept away from home residents, educators from the children and teachers from the students. In most cases, however, it will be difficult to use them in other areas instead.

The Federal Ministry of Health said that unvaccinated people are not threatened with any labor law consequences from the new rules. The vaccination also remains voluntary.

“Incidence has lost its informative value”

Representatives of the grand coalition defended the changes to the Infection Protection Act. “The incidence has lost its informative value,” said the health policy spokeswoman for the SPD, Sabine Dittmar. Regarding the obligation to provide information, she said that where vulnerable and particularly vulnerable people come together, particular caution should be exercised in the pandemic. In hospitals or medical practices, there is already the obligation to provide information.

Union parliamentary group vice Stephan Stracke (CSU) also said in the debate that the incidence value had “lost some of its importance”. He also pointed out that the number of new infections would continue to be used in the future.

Criticism of the obligation to provide information

Left MP Gesine Lötzsch criticized the new information requirement. “Half-baked legislative changes destroy trust between employers and employees,” she said. “We reject that.” She accused the federal government of failing the vaccination campaign – the quota of those vaccinated was significantly higher in other EU countries.

FDP Vice Wolfgang Kubicki criticized the general course with further restrictions on fundamental rights. “There is no danger from non-vaccinated people, the danger comes exclusively from infected people.” The government leaves it open when and under what conditions the existing state of emergency will be lifted, criticized Kubicki. “Massive restrictions on fundamental rights can no longer be justified.”