Status: 04/06/2022 03:14 am
The voluntary isolation of corona infected people planned for May 1st should not exist after all. Federal Minister of Health Lauterbach makes a U-turn after sharp criticism and speaks of a “damaging signal”.
After sharp criticism, Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) has now spoken out against voluntary isolation of corona infected people. “It would be wrong for the health authorities to end the order for isolation after corona infection in favor of voluntariness and it will not happen,” he wrote on Twitter. “I made a mistake here. That relieves the health authorities, but the signal is wrong and harmful.”
He further explained: “Corona is not a cold. Therefore, there must still be isolation after infection. Ordered and controlled by the health authorities.” He announced further information for Wednesday. He emphasized: “The mistake was mine and has nothing to do with the FDP or relaxation. It was about relieving the health authorities”.
Health authorities should continue to issue isolation notices
Lauterbach had previously announced the turnaround on the ZDF talk show “Markus Lanz”. He would “cash in again,” he said. Although the health authorities had called for it to be voluntary, Lauterbach now sees that it would be a “devastating signal” if an infected person “decided for themselves whether to stay at home or not”.
The health authorities should therefore continue to issue isolation notices after May 1st – although “that cannot be controlled” and the health authorities “would have more time to do something else” without the bureaucratic effort, as Lauterbach emphasized.
However, the people had reached the point that they now consider Corona to be “harmless”. This “does more harm” than sticking to the isolation notices, which are obsolete in practice, the minister explained. In the case of the quarantine of contact persons, however, the voluntary nature should be retained.
The health ministers of the federal and state governments agreed on Monday that people infected with corona would no longer be required to go into isolation from May 1st. The new quarantine and isolation rules should then be based on “voluntary”. There had been sharp criticism of the new regulation from the opposition and social organizations.