BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has rejected calls for a quick end to the existing corona measures. “An immediate end to all measures would be reckless and is not demanded by Christian Drosten either,” the SPD politician told the German Press Agency on Tuesday.
Drosten, the head of virology at the Charité university clinic in Berlin, said in an interview with the “Tagesspiegel”, among other things, that in his opinion the pandemic was over. In response, Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP) called for “the last corona protection measures” to be ended.
The FDP continued to put pressure on Tuesday and received support from the Union, which called for a special conference with the Prime Ministers of the federal states and Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) at the beginning of the year. Doctors representatives appealed to the population to be careful.
Lauterbach said: “Christian Drosten is right that we have entered the endemic state of the corona waves, the waves only affect parts of the population.” Nevertheless, it is now still important to protect the people who are particularly at risk, for example by using masks in care facilities or by isolating at work. “The clinics are full, the staff is overwhelmed, the excess mortality rate is high and the winter isn’t over yet.”
FDP politicians, on the other hand, no longer see any reason for mandatory measures. With Drosten’s statement, “the basis for any restriction of fundamental rights to contain the corona virus is withdrawn,” said FDP Vice Wolfgang Kubicki to the “Tagesspiegel”.
Minister of Justice Buschmann pointed out on Twitter on Tuesday that no change in the law was needed for this. The measures anchored in the Infection Protection Act until April 7th, such as the obligation to wear a mask on long-distance trains and long-distance buses or in medical and nursing facilities, could therefore also be easily lifted by regulation by the federal government. “We should now make use of this opportunity,” Buschmann wrote in a letter to Lauterbach dated December 26, about which the “Tagesspiegel” reported.
In addition to Lauterbach, other politicians from the SPD and Greens also opposed short-term changes: The health policy spokeswoman for the SPD parliamentary group, Heike Baehrens, spoke out in favor of maintaining “the path until the end of the regulations at the beginning of April”. The Greens health politician Janosch Dahmen opposed the ntv broadcaster “now over his knee” to initiate changes. It’s about not giving up the game in the last few meters.
The FDP received support from the Union. Their health policy spokesman Tino Sorge told the editorial network Germany (RND): “Europe is going back to normal, only the traffic light government does not have the courage to finally end most of the corona measures.” He called for a meeting between Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and the Prime Ministers of the federal states at the beginning of January.
The President of the German District Association, Reinhard Sager, told the newspapers of the Funke media group that the federal government should “urgently” review the need for its existing measures. The mandatory wearing of masks on the train is becoming increasingly difficult to convey.
Doctors’ representatives called for mutual consideration. “Relaxation doesn’t mean that you can let go of all precautionary measures, you have to pay a little more attention to yourself and your environment,” said the chairman of the World Medical Association, Frank Ulrich Montgomery, to Bavarian radio. He advocated wearing masks in doctor’s offices and in cramped and poorly ventilated indoor spaces. The President of the German Medical Association, Klaus Reinhardt, also appealed to “caution”. On Deutschlandfunk, however, he also questioned “the extent to which we still need legal measures within the meaning of the Infection Protection Act”./jr/DP/nas