Saturday 23 October 2021
Debate about Spahn advance
Medical chief Gassen calls for an end to the corona emergency
After a year and a half, Health Minister Spahn sees the time to end the nationwide pandemic state of emergency. After much criticism from the federal states and municipalities, Spahn receives support from the head of the Kassenärtzliche Vereinigung.
The move by Health Minister Jens Spahn to end the corona emergency in Germany continues to cause discussions. While state and local politicians, among others, criticize the proposal and warn of a patchwork quilt, the head of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV), Andreas Gassen, supports an early end to the state of emergency. Spahn’s announcement was “ultimately logical,” he told the “Rheinische Post”. This also does not mean the immediate end of all measures.
“But we will experience that there will be regionally different approaches, which of course also depend on regional factors such as the vaccination rate, the number of infections, age distribution and hospital occupancy,” said Gassen. “It was to be expected that infection rates would rise in autumn and winter and this is not only the case with coronaviruses.” Adults should therefore get vaccinated. “At a certain point and with a sufficient lead time, we can then move on to placing the necessary protective and defensive measures in the hands of the citizens,” said Gassen.
The SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach, however, told the “Passauer Neue Presse” that the announcement in a phase in which there were increasing numbers of infections, vaccination breakthroughs, stagnating vaccination rates and other problems had surprised him. Should the determination of the epidemic emergency actually expire, he called for a replacement regulation. Measures to combat pandemic must remain legally secure, said Lauterbach.
The prime ministers of the federal states also demanded that there must continue to be a national legal basis for the corona protective measures. Spahn had recently spoken out in favor of not continuing the determination of an epidemic situation of national importance beyond November 25th. This determination is the basis for regulations and central corona measures in Germany. It is about ending a state of emergency after 19 months, said Spahn on Deutschlandfunk. This should restore the powers of the federal government to a normal state.
RKI expects increasing numbers
Spahn emphasized that this did not mean “Freedom Day” or the end of all measures. These could also be regulated without the state of emergency. For this purpose, either the federal regulatory authority would have to be changed, or the state parliaments would have to resolve corresponding powers at the state level, said Spahn.
City Council President Burkhard Jung warned of a “patchwork quilt” and called for the so-called epidemic situation of national scope to be maintained or for a transition period to be introduced. “There must continue to be a nationwide framework in the fight against Corona. The states must be able to continue to specify rules such as 3G or even 2G and the wearing of masks indoors over the winter,” said the Mayor of Leipzig to the newspapers of the Funke media group According to SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil, the pandemic situation should be assessed jointly in the Bundestag. “In this transitional period after the election we will look for majorities in parliament that are larger than the current government,” said Klingbeil.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) meanwhile expects the number of corona cases in Germany to continue to rise. “It is to be expected that the rise in the number of cases will accelerate in the further course of autumn and winter,” wrote the institute in its new weekly report on the pandemic.