“government’s poor report”
Federal government burns 755 million corona masks
6/27/2023 7:06 am
They would have been urgently needed in medical practices and hospitals during the pandemic. Now masses of certified surgical and FFP2 masks have expired and must be incinerated. Sharp criticism comes from politics.
The federal government plans to destroy at least 755 million corona protective masks by burning them. The masks were procured at the beginning of 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic and have now passed their expiry date, the Federal Ministry of Health told the “Welt”. The ministry is now planning “energy recovery that conforms to customs and waste law,” said a spokesman. They should be cremated.
Accordingly, 660 million certified surgical masks and around 95 million certified FFP2 masks are affected. There was sharp criticism of the project from politicians – it was also directed against the former Health Minister Jens Spahn from the CDU, during whose tenure the masks had been purchased.
“The expensive over-procurement under the former Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn has gotten out of control,” said the FDP budget expert Karsten Klein of the newspaper. “Mistakes have been made that must not be repeated.” Klein called on the federal states to establish a “rolling system” so that “masks are given to medical facilities before they lose their shelf life”.
“Certificate of poverty for the federal government”
The opposition voiced sharp criticism. “The massive burning of corona masks by the Federal Ministry of Health is a sign of poverty for the Federal Government,” criticized Kathrin Vogler, spokeswoman for health policy for the left-wing parliamentary group in the Bundestag, to “Welt”. It was foreseeable that the masks would no longer be used in many areas after the end of the mask requirement.
The current Minister Karl Lauterbach from the SPD “should have looked for an alternative solution in good time and given the masks to medical practices, hospitals or facilities for the disabled on a large scale,” said Vogler. The facilities would then no longer have to order their own masks and could have protected employees and patients free of charge.
So far, the Federal Ministry of Health has already had masks destroyed on a smaller scale, said the spokesman for “Welt”. “So far, around two million surgical masks and around one million PfH have been energetically recycled in Germany,” he said. PfH masks are FFP2 and similar masks.
For the current large-scale destruction, Minister Lauterbach’s house launched a tender at the beginning of May, for which external disposal companies could apply until the end of May. This emerges from documents that the ministry has uploaded to a federal procurement platform.
In addition, a large part of the federal states are planning to burn corona masks or have already done so. This emerges from a “world” query at all health ministries of the countries. Ten countries state that they have burned a total of 57.38 million masks or that they want to burn them in a timely manner.