BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann has expressed skepticism about reintroducing the mask requirement if the corona infections rise sharply again. Apparently he doesn’t think their benefit has been scientifically proven yet. “If the state wants to prescribe masks, for example indoors, it must be evidence-based and proportionate. We will discuss whether this is the case when all the reports are available,” said the FDP politician to the Dsseldorfer “Rheinische Post” (Saturday).
“Evidence-based”, as Buschmann put it, means according to Duden: on the basis of collated and evaluated scientific knowledge. Buschmann said he wears a mask himself in the supermarket, but voluntarily. The chairman of the World Medical Association, Frank Ulrich Montgomery, explained in the newspapers of the Funke media group (Saturday) that the “scientific evidence on the sense of compulsory masks and vaccination” is “overwhelming”.
The Council of Experts, whose report Buschmann wants to wait for, is scheduled to present its opinion on June 30th on the review of the previous corona protection measures. According to the will of the FDP, the future measures are to be discussed in the summer, after the end of the Bundestag break the Infection Protection Act is to be amended shortly before it expires on September 23rd.
In view of the rising corona incidences and the expected new wave in autumn, Montgomery called on politicians to quickly develop a plan of action. The opponents of strong legal regulations are “not about medicine and protecting people from illness, suffering and death. They are only concerned with economic interests, cringed with an absolute concept of freedom that neglects protection,” he said. Even if the currently applicable Corona regulations only expired in autumn, one could “define the successor regulations now instead of postponing everything to September, as the FDP wants”.
The medical officer told the “Passauer Neue Presse” (Saturday): “There must not be a long, grueling party-political debate about it until the time when the child fell into the well.”
Green leader Omid Nouripour expects that an understanding in the traffic light coalition is possible. “I’m counting on us to take precautions together and prevent further lockdowns,” he told the news portal t-online. “All experts assume that the situation may worsen in autumn.”
However, the Marburger Bund Medical Association no longer considers free corona citizen tests and vaccination centers to be necessary in the summer. The test regulation expires at the end of June, but according to Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD), it should be extended.
“The end of the free citizen tests (from July) is understandable and consistent, because the isolation after a positive test was also the responsibility of the citizens,” said the association’s chairwoman Susanne Johna of the “Neue Osnabrcker Zeitung” (NOZ). “What remains is testing in hospitals and homes, on-site, and also free for visitors.” In their opinion, the vaccination centers could initially be completely replaced by family doctors. Mass vaccinations can only be carried out again when vaccines adapted to the virus variants are approved. “But that will hardly be necessary before September.”
Unlike Lauterbach, she currently sees no reason for a new campaign to refresh the third-party vaccination. “Anyone who is healthy and already boosted can wait for the adapted vaccine that is promised for September,” said Johna./and/DP/zb