Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach has defended that there are no transitional regulations when the convalescent status is reduced from six to three months.
“I can’t say now that there will be a transition if it cannot be maintained medically,” said the SPD politician on Sunday evening on the ZDF program “Berlin direct”.
In view of the now predominant omicron variant, those who have recovered from corona would unfortunately have lost their vaccination protection after three months and could become infected.
“If you want security and want to control the number of cases and protect the vulnerable in particular, then you have to act quickly.”
The SPD politician campaigned for a continued cautious course. “We’re sticking with it,” he said, pointing out that unlike other loosening countries, Germany has the second-oldest population in Europe.
He expects the peak of the wave with several hundred thousand newly infected people per day in mid-February. But: “Once we have that behind us, then of course the restrictions cannot remain. And then, step by step, openings would be made again. It is right to consider that now.”
Lauterbach: “We’ll have problems again in the fall”
He believes that there will be other variants because there are still too many people around the world who could become infected. This is how virus combinations could arise. He fears: “In the fall we will have problems again,” said Lauterbach.
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Lauterbach said in his capacity as a member of parliament – expressly not as a minister – that he considered the proposal by a cross-party group of members of the Bundestag led by the Social Democrat Dirk Wiese for a temporary obligation to have three vaccinations to be conceivable.
“You can’t expect more from the citizens.” The aim of compulsory vaccination is to create basic immunization in the population – “and of course this is given with three vaccinations”.