After omicron climax
Lauterbach: Relaxation “before Easter” possible
2/7/2022 2:31 am
The calls for easing the corona measures are getting louder. For Health Minister Lauterbach, however, they are coming too early at the moment. The SPD politician can imagine the first easing “well before Easter”. Provided that the peak of the omicron wave is already over.
Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach believes that the corona measures will only be relaxed in a few weeks. Lauterbach said on Bild TV: “I think we will relax well before Easter.” He was “firmly convinced” of that. The prerequisite, however, is that the omicron wave reaches its peak in mid-February, as expected. “You can’t distribute the bear’s skin before it’s shot,” warned Lauterbach.
The Minister of Health could imagine that easing would be discussed at the next prime ministerial conference. Whether there will actually be any easing “depends on how we stand then.”
At the moment, Lauterbach is strictly against easing: he thinks it would be “crazy” if the measures were relaxed when the number of infected people was high and the strategy worked. The minister asked: “What would happen in Germany if we proceeded as in England?” His answer: “Then we would have roughly 300 deaths per day. But we have significantly fewer, namely 60 to 80.” With the measures “we save lives every day,” emphasized Lauterbach.
Lauterbach promotes compulsory vaccination
Lauterbach again campaigned for general compulsory vaccination: “If we actually got compulsory vaccination in autumn, then I think the spook will be largely over because we will close the vaccination gaps.” The minister made it clear that this only applies to compulsory vaccination for all adults over the age of 18: “If we make vaccination compulsory from the age of 50 or for every second person, then we subsequently had a huge debate about compulsory vaccination, but the problem is still not there solved.” In the group of 18 to 50 year olds there are many who could also become seriously ill and who need to be protected.
Lauterbach was confident that he would be able to get vaccinations through the Bundestag even against the threat of resistance from the Union around the CDU chairman Friedrich Merz: “I think even then – with all due respect for Friedrich Merz and the size of the CDU, which also has ever sat differently in the Bundestag – we still get the majority.”
Merz announced at the weekend that it did not want to support any of the proposals previously presented in the Bundestag. These range from compulsory vaccination for everyone over the age of 18 to the complete rejection of compulsory vaccination. A decision could be made in March.
Criticism of RKI boss Wieler
Lauterbach meanwhile criticized the President of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Lothar Wieler, for his poor communication of the reduction of the corona recovery status from six to three months: “This was not okay,” he said. It is not acceptable that he, as a minister, finds out at the same time as the citizens that there is a new status. “That is clear, and it has been openly discussed.” That shouldn’t “repeat”. At the same time, the minister saw no reason for personnel consequences: Wieler had “done very important and good work for two years and still enjoys my trust. It’s that simple.”
The background to the discussion is that the designated FDP general secretary, Bijan Djir-Sarai, told “Spiegel” that Wieler could no longer be sure of the “trust of the FDP”. The communication debacle about the recovered status was “not an isolated case”. Shortly before Christmas, Wieler had already come under criticism when his authority promoted stricter measures shortly before a federal-state summit, without Lauterbach saying that this had been agreed with him.