Monday, November 8th, 2021
Corona rules “not precise”
Merkel is pushing for a federal-state strategy
The meeting of the federal and state health ministers should bring uniform rules for dealing with the exploding number of corona cases. But Chancellor Merkel criticizes the measures adopted as incomplete and demands improvements. With that she plays the ball in the direction of the countries.
The Executive Chancellor Angela Merkel has once again shown herself very concerned about the worsening corona situation in Germany. The Chancellor has been “very concerned about the development of the pandemic for weeks,” said her spokesman, Steffen Seibert. Merkel “calls on all of us – citizens, business, the various levels of government – to do what is necessary to get the pandemic under control.”
Seibert once again appealed to the population on behalf of Merkel to take advantage of the vaccination offers. Anyone who can get vaccinated should do so. There is a “clear connection”, emphasized Seibert: In the German regions where the vaccination rates are lowest, the situation is currently “worst”. Most corona patients in the hospitals are not vaccinated. In addition, everyone should adhere to the rules for containing the corona, continued Seibert. There are “good, protective rules like 3G”. However, these would only make sense “if they are checked and if they are adhered to”.
Seibert also criticized Merkel about the actions of the federal and state governments in the pandemic. The resolutions of the conference of health ministers on nursing and old people’s homes are “not precise enough”. There must be a daily test requirement for employees and visitors. The booster vaccinations for the residents of the homes would also have to be organized quickly. In general, “our main focus” should currently be on people in nursing homes and old people’s homes.
Merkel: Focusing on hospitalization indexes alone is not enough
Merkel is also dissatisfied with how the hospitalization index is used as an important indicator for the corona situation. “What the Chancellor misses is an agreement between the federal and state governments on the value of the hospitalization index from which additional measures should be taken,” said Seibert. For a possible conference with the prime ministers Merkel is “open at any time” and has “sympathy” for it, said Seibert. However, there is currently no consensus among the federal states on this issue.
The chairman of the Prime Minister’s Conference, North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst, had advertised for an early federal-state round, but Bremen’s Mayor Andreas Bovenschulte, among others, is against it. To the much-discussed question whether the corona rapid tests in public test centers should be free again, Seibert said that Merkel could understand that people are thinking about it. She accompanies the considerations “quite positively”.
The spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Health explicitly spoke out in favor of a temporary return to exemption from costs. The managing minister Jens Spahn is holding talks with the traffic light parties, he said. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported a seven-day incidence of 201.1 in the morning. That is the highest value since the beginning of the pandemic. At the same time, there are “regionally extremely high numbers of new infections,” as Seibert emphasized. In these areas, “unfortunately, the number of hospital admissions with corona is again increasing rapidly” as well as intensive care units “that are filled with corona patients”.