Omicron rages, the obligation to vaccinate is debated and in the meantime the federal government changes the status of those who have recovered. The health policy spokesman for the Greens, Janosch Dahmen, spoke to the star about the sense of compulsory vaccination and the government’s crisis communication.
Mr. Dahmen, the laboratories are at their limit, new infections are increasing every day and at the end of the month this could also be reflected in the hospitalization incidence. Is the pandemic just getting out of hand again?
We know from the last two years of the pandemic that we experience different times of stress. First it was the health authorities, then the intensive care units. With the Omikron variant, medical laboratories have reached their capacity limits. But: Testing yourself out of the pandemic will not work. We have to keep the number of cases in the manageable range – if they rise sharply, the health system, as we can see, is also repeatedly heavily burdened in various places.
What exactly does the “controllable area” look like?
The requirement must be that the capacities in the laboratories are sufficient to detect and monitor infections. With the current utilization of over 95 percent and a positive test rate of over 25 percent, this is no longer the case. Therefore, on the one hand, we have to get the number of infections under control. In the medium and long term, however, laboratory capacities must be expanded as a critical resource. In the past, rapid tests were used too one-sidedly.
Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach recently announced that we will not reach the worst phase of the omicron wave until mid-February. How is the federal government preparing for this?
It is crucial that the measures renewed in the federal-state talks are implemented without gaps everywhere. We have to ensure an even more consistent FFP2 mask requirement in the federal states. Where FFP2 masks cannot be worn, the 2G Plus rule must be applied. I have no sympathy for the loosening ambitions that have already been initiated in individual countries. An all-clear is currently lacking any scientific basis. We are even seeing that the occupancy on the normal hospital wards in several federal states is increasing again.
How is compulsory vaccination supposed to help? According to Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s plans, it could start in April at the earliest.
The obligation to vaccinate does not help us for the ongoing Omikron wave. She is the instrument to regain freedoms in the upcoming autumn-winter season. At the same time, it should protect us from further corona waves and new virus variants. The aim is to prevent another pandemic winter.
How should the general obligation to vaccinate be enforced if there is already a problem with the institution-related obligation? Greifswald had recently announced that it would not implement compulsory vaccination for nursing staff because there was a lack of capacity.
It must be clear: when people take care of others, they have a great responsibility. It is not reasonable for the patients if they get infected by the staff in the hospital and get even worse. In other European countries that have implemented corresponding mandatory regulations in the healthcare sector, we see that the actual loss of personnel due to compulsory vaccination is very low. The figures from France or Italy are between 0.1 and 0.3 percent. Should a similar situation arise in Germany, the supply is not at risk.
They support a first bill that would limit compulsory vaccination to two years. How do you come up with this time span?
We should formulate a law that prevents the healthcare system from being overburdened by sustainably increasing the vaccination rate and is linked to the development of the pandemic. It makes sense to initially limit the obligation to vaccinate to the particularly difficult phase and to anchor an evaluation clause. After the two years, you can check whether compulsory vaccination is still necessary and whether it needs to be extended.
And what do I have to do to be fully vaccinated for the whole two years? The protective effect finally decreases again, Israel is already offering the fourth vaccination and our Minister of Health has announced something similar.
According to the current medical status, three vaccinations are sufficient to prevent treatment in an intensive care unit. In this way we can certainly prevent serious illnesses and an overload of the health care system. If something changes and we see that you need another vaccination or no vaccination at all, then it is the task of the legislator to adapt the rules. However, it can make medical sense to have booster vaccinations, but these are not required by law.
Why should I take advantage of this?
You may vaccinate yourself against the flu every year. Not because you personally have to reckon with becoming seriously ill and ending up in the intensive care unit, but you are doing this to avoid catching the flu, which in younger people only means a temporary absence. This can also be useful for Sars-CoV-2. The law is not intended to eliminate the virus or end the pandemic worldwide. It’s about leading people out of the pandemic situation. It can therefore make sense to recommend further vaccinations and thus prevent the healthcare system from being overburdened.
Your Twitter account reads as if vaccination is the way out of the pandemic. So why do people still need to get tested?
When I talk about the way out of the pandemic, I mean that we can leave the pandemic situation with the onerous restrictions on freedom behind us. This will not succeed without a high vaccination rate. But we can’t just look at ourselves: there is a need for more vaccinations around the world. And we cannot yet say how the virus will continue to change. The strategy therefore also includes detecting the virus early and preventing its spread through personal isolation or quarantine measures. In this respect, it remains important to use the tests to break chains of infection.
Now, however, the high-quality PCR tests are to be prioritized. Aren’t you worried that more and more infectious people are walking around and stimulating the infection process?
We now know that the rapid tests in asymptomatic infected people can very well show when they are no longer infectious. It was therefore right and proper that the Paul Ehrlich Institute identified the particularly suitable rapid tests. Due to the bottleneck in the PCR tests, we will have to wait longer for the results in the coming weeks because they cannot be processed at the usual speed. However, it is clear that we need to expand the PCR test capacities for diagnostic purposes in particular.
Are there already concrete plans for this? Do you also want to rely on the pooling process that is used in Vienna, for example? Several samples are analyzed together.
There are a number of examples in Germany where this procedure is used. For example at primary and special schools in North Rhine-Westphalia. However, there was a failure to introduce the pool PCR test method across the board. We have to expand the resources so that in future we can test every German citizen at least once a week using a PCR-based method or a reliable method comparable to PCR testing.
Why was the procedure initially rejected?
I can’t speak for the old federal government, but I can say that it relied very one-sidedly on rapid and antigen test procedures. This is causing us major problems when trying to quickly record new variants based on data and to keep track of the infection process. The fact that Germany has one of the lowest PCR test capacities per inhabitant in Europe shouldn’t stay that way.
The convalescent status has now been reduced from six to three months, but this regulation does not apply in the Bundestag or at EU level. How do you explain that to the citizens?
The new federal government started out with the aim of pursuing a science-based health policy. That is why we have set up committees such as the Expert Council. The latest information shows that protection after going through a corona disease is less sustainable. Building on these insights and expert recommendations, we need to adapt the rules to protect the population. We are also campaigning for change at EU level. And of course it should also apply in the Bundestag.
According to the Cosmo study, trust in political institutions is dwindling – partly because of the chaotic communication. How do you want to change that in the future?
The data shows two things: on the one hand, fatigue and frustration, which is very easy to understand in the third year of the pandemic. On the other hand, the majority of citizens are prepared to support the necessary measures and to react responsibly to the current situation. This is our most important resource. The federal government must pursue a pandemic policy that addresses this majority and keeps an eye on the freedom and needs of the many reasonable people. However, this will only succeed if communication is transparent, comprehensible and forward-looking. Overall, there is still room for improvement in politics.