Thursday, November 4th, 2021
Booster, test, advertise
What should the new Corona course look like?
The federal and state governments should sound out the further corona course for the winter. The increasing number of infections also increases the pressure. The main focus of the conference will be on booster vaccinations and compulsory tests in nursing homes.
Who needs booster vaccinations? Where should the syringes be placed? When are there third vaccinations for everyone? And should employees and visitors in nursing homes have to be tested for Corona on a daily basis? At a two-day conference in Lindau on Lake Constance, the federal and state health ministers want to talk about a Corona course for the winter from this Thursday (4 p.m.) and find joint answers to these questions. But the way there seems long.
The acting Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn reiterated his appeal on Wednesday for more booster vaccinations in order to reinforce vaccinations that were already in the past. From his point of view, the speed of “boosting” is not enough. Therefore, all countries should write to all people over the age of 60 and point this out. The suggestion came from regional circles to write to all over 70-year-olds, as can be seen from a draft resolution that is available to the German Press Agency (dpa).
Bavaria, which currently chairs the conference of health ministers, also wants to make a new attempt to make third-party vaccinations possible for everyone. It must be possible to “get ahead of the situation”, said Bavaria’s head of department Klaus Holetschek. The third vaccinations are allowed. “We will have to discuss very, very clearly how things are going now,” he said, referring to the talks in Lindau. Lower Saxony’s head of department Daniela Behrens criticized the previously necessary lead of 14 days when ordering vaccines. “This is a state of affairs that we cannot accept,” she told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung. “The acting Federal Minister of Health urgently needs to make new and more pragmatic agreements with the pharmaceutical wholesalers that enable more flexible planning of vaccinations on site.”
2G is apparently not an option in nursing homes
It was recently disputed whether the federal states should also reactivate the regional vaccination centers for booster vaccinations. Several federal states, the German Association of Cities and doctors’ representatives reacted with criticism to a corresponding suggestion by Spahn. Spahn then said yesterday, Wednesday, that the public offers for booster vaccinations do not necessarily have to take place in large vaccination centers. Offers outside of medical practices are important: Too many people who want to be vaccinated are “currently unable to find a doctor who vaccinates them”. The Federal Ministry had also called for a comprehensive test obligation in nursing homes, but the draft resolution from federal states only provides that the federal and state governments “work towards ensuring that a sufficient range of tests is available in the facilities”. A 2G option, as proposed by the federal government, is not found in the paper for nursing homes.
North Rhine-Westphalia’s new Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst would find compulsory testing there “absolutely right”, as he said in the ARD “Tagesthemen”. It could not be “that after all these months of experience we will make the same mistakes from the beginning of the pandemic, when people died lonely”. The German Nursing Council expressed itself almost identically: “We find mandatory tests absolutely correct, because we naturally have to build protection for the residents,” said the president of the association of large industry associations, Christine Vogler, of the dpa. The chairman of the family doctors’ association, Ulrich Weigeldt, saw it this way in the “Bild” newspaper: “No person who has not been vaccinated is allowed to have contact with such a vulnerable group, either professionally or as a visitor. This applies to retirement homes and nursing homes as well as intensive care units.”
Holetschek: emigration of nurses “mustn’t leave us cold”
Also on the question of whether the corona pandemic should still be classified as an epidemic emergency of national scope after November 25th, no joint course by the federal and state governments has yet been identified. Federal Minister Spahn recently spoke out, like the possible future government partners SPD, Greens and FDP, not to extend the classification as the legal basis for extensive corona restrictions. Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder said yesterday, Wednesday, that the alternative solution proposed by the federal government was “more of an auxiliary crutch”. The conference of health ministers could not remain the only federal-state round at which these questions are discussed. As early as Wednesday, Spahn campaigned for decisions to be made on the broadest possible basis through a conference of prime ministers. Söder also advocated it. But restrained reactions came from other federal states.
The chairman of the conference of health ministers, Holetschek, also announced that the care situation in Lindau would be the focus of attention. “We are now noticing that the maintenance is at the limit,” he said. Nursing staff said goodbye to the hospitals, shortened their working hours, and in some cases even migrated to temporary employment agencies. “That shouldn’t leave us cold.” After months of almost weekly video conferences, the ministers are negotiating in presence again for the first time. The resolutions are to be announced at a press conference on Friday (1 p.m.).