Corona measures in autumn
Lindner is against blanket restrictions on freedom
06/08/2022 11:33 am
FDP boss Lindner does not yet want to decide on individual corona rules in autumn. But it is clear to him: “There should no longer be any general restrictions on freedom.” Health Minister Lauterbach continues to advocate the possibility of a mask requirement.
In the debate about the Corona policy for the fall, FDP chairman Christian Lindner made it clear that the planned scientific assessment of protective measures should first be awaited. “I’m not taking part in the discussion about individual measures now, because then I would be assuming knowledge that you can’t have yet,” said the Federal Minister of Finance on the ARD program “Maischberger”. “Because the scientists only want to show us the effectiveness of individual measures now.” For him, however, one thing is certain: “There should no longer be any general restrictions on freedom.”
Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann also only wants to decide on the rules for the fall after the planned scientific assessment. The fact that the current version of the Infection Protection Act expires on September 23 is not a random date, said the FDP politician in the ARD “Morgenmagazin”. The date was chosen so that “after the summer break we have two weeks of sittings in the German Bundestag to go through a very orderly, regular legislative process.”
At the end of June, a panel of experts is to present an evaluation of the measures. “Between June 30 and the end of the summer break, we will discuss what to do with the federal states,” said Buschmann. The federal government also discussed this with the Prime Ministers’ Conference. “I don’t understand why some now think that this timetable is no longer worth anything.”
Lauterbach insists on the possibility of a mask requirement
In contrast to the FDP politicians, Greens leader Omid Nouripour recently called for a rapid change to the Infection Protection Act. “As of now, we don’t even have a legal basis for a mask requirement,” he criticized. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, for example, advocates creating the possibility of making masks compulsory indoors again. “We must not go into the crisis unprepared like we did last fall,” he said in the budget debate in the Bundestag.
With the amended Infection Protection Act, general mask requirements for events or when shopping, as well as 2G and 3G access regulations, have been abolished since the beginning of April. For the time being, “basic protection” applies – for example with mask requirements in buses, trains, clinics, practices and nursing homes. The current version of the law runs until 23 September.
The Federal Government’s Corona Expert Council is presenting a statement in Berlin this Wednesday on the necessary preparations for autumn and winter. It is expected that the experts working with the Chairman of the Board of Management of the Berlin University Hospital Charité, Heyo Kroemer, will provide information on further political steps.