The Federal Council has decided on new corona protection requirements for autumn and winter. The decision on Friday introduced nationwide mask requirements in clinics, nursing homes and medical practices. The federal states can impose further requirements such as mask requirements in shops. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (59, SPD) had previously failed with special treatment for children and young people. He wanted particularly strict rules for them for the coming autumn and winter.
“That lacks any logic and proportionality”
Lauterbach wanted to have Covid-19 included in the “plague paragraph” and put Corona on the same level as diseases such as plague and cholera. As a result, special regulations would have applied to students after infection. Schleswig-Holstein’s Education Minister Karin Prien called Lauterbach’s plans a “disaster for schoolchildren”. The Bremen Senator for Children and Education, Sascha Karolin Aulepp, says: “Declaring Corona to be a deadly disease for children shows the view Karl Lauterbach has on children. Such an approach keeps healthy children away from day care centers and schools in large numbers.” Hamburg had also declared that it would reject the “planned new regulation in Paragraph 34”.
Education Minister Prien told the picture on Friday: “I am relieved and grateful that it was possible to stop this wrong path with a joint, massive intervention by the Ministers of Education and many Prime Ministers. In the final phase of the pandemic, for the first time introducing a legal ban on entry and a free test obligation only for daycare centers and schools even in suspected cases is devoid of any logic and proportionality. It would again have been a regulation at the expense of children and young people and an unacceptable burden for families with children.
Which Corona rules apply from October 1st?
Irrespective of the overturned special regulation for schoolchildren, the following rules will apply after approval by the Federal Council from October 1, 2022 until at least April 7, 2023:
The following applies nationwide:
- In long-distance trains the FFP2 mask is mandatory, for children between the ages of 6 and 13 a medical surgical mask is sufficient.
- In airplanes the mask requirement is no longer applicable.
- In medical practices, care facilities, clinics and all other medical facilities is one FFP2 mask required. For access to hospitals, nursing homes or comparable facilities, a mask should be worn in addition to the mask requirement Test evidence obligation are valid.
- Children under the age of six, as well as deaf people and people with a medical certificate of exemption exempt from the mask requirement.
- In the future, clinics should not only Corona data from the normal and intensive care units, but also have to communicate who comes to the emergency room with an infection.
The federal states can decide on these additional rules: Level 1
- Mask requirement in public interiors.
- Mask requirement in Buses and trains (public transport).
- testing obligation in certain community facilities (facilities for accommodating asylum seekers, detention facilities, children’s homes) as well as schools and day-care centers.
- Masks are compulsory for leisure, cultural and sporting events, in leisure and cultural facilities as well as in gastronomy and during sport. exceptions There is for people who present a recent test and for those who have recovered (within the past 90 days) and are fully vaccinated and whose last vaccination was within three months.
- Mask requirement in schools and other training institutions for employees and for students from the fifth school year, if this is necessary “to maintain face-to-face teaching”.
The federal states can decide on these additional rules to “defense danger”: Level 2
- Masks are compulsory at outdoor eventsif a minimum distance of 1.5 meters cannot be maintained and at events in public interiors.
- obligatory hygiene concepts (Provision of disinfectants, avoidance of unnecessary contacts, ventilation concepts) for companies, facilities, trade, offers and events from the leisure, cultural and sports sectors where several people are present.
- The arrangement of a Minimum distance of 1.5 meters in public space.
- The definition of person limits for events in publicly accessible indoor spaces.