Lauterbach defends concept
Hospital boss finds corona measures hardly feasible
8/10/2022 7:52 am
The head of the hospital company, Gass, criticizes the lack of feasibility of many corona measures and possible exceptions for vaccinated people. Meanwhile, Health Minister Lauterbach rejects the accusation that the concept is pushing people to keep getting new vaccinations.
The criticism of the federal government’s corona protection plans for the cold season continues. The head of the German Hospital Society (DKG), Gerald Gass, called for improvements to the planned Infection Protection Act. “We welcome the fact that it should still be possible to wear masks indoors,” he told the “Rheinische Post”. “But the exceptions for vaccinated people are completely impractical and therefore contradict the goal of good protection against infection.”
The rules planned for clinics cannot be implemented either. “It is planned that in the future all hospital employees and visitors will only be allowed to enter a hospital with a current test or a vaccination certificate that is no more than three months old (after triple vaccination) and in both cases an FFP2 mask,” explained Gass.
The draft for the new Infection Protection Act includes, for example, that the federal states may again impose mask requirements from October. A mask requirement on buses, trains and planes should continue to apply nationwide, as well as a new requirement for masks and tests in hospitals and care facilities. Among other things, there is criticism that people should be exempt from the obligation to wear masks in restaurants or at cultural and sporting events if their vaccination is not older than three months.
Lauterbach: Vaccination every three months “medically senseless”
There were also differences about the exceptions for newly vaccinated people provided by the federal government on Tuesday at a conference of health ministers (GMK) of the federal and state governments. Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach, in view of the criticism of the past few days, made it clear that the possibility of an exception to the mask requirement should by no means be understood as a recommendation for a booster vaccination every three months. That is absurd and would also be “medically nonsensical,” said Lauterbach on Tuesday evening in the ARD “Tagesthemen”. The minister is currently recovering from a corona infection himself. Lauterbach suspects the desire of some to return to the pre-Corona times behind the criticism of the draft for the Infection Protection Act, the SPD politician made clear in the ZDF “heute journal”. “We want to build on some of the rules that we’ve had before. And many don’t want that.” Instead, many just wanted to continue living as before – as if Corona were over so that autumn could be easy. However, infestation of society is not an option for the federal government because it would mean too many deaths, said Lauterbach.
FDP health politician Andrew Ullmann warned the federal states against untying the draft law of the red-green-yellow federal government again. “The health ministers of the federal states are on the wrong track if they demand further tightening,” he told the “Augsburger Allgemeine”. “We are giving the countries enough tools to fight the pandemic in a decentralized manner.” According to the newspaper, Ullmann announced that the proposals by Lauterbach and Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann would be examined for their practicality in the legislative process in the Bundestag.
Bavaria demands uniform rules
A spokesman for Bavaria’s Health Minister Klaus Holetschek demanded in the newspapers of the Bayern media group: “We need clear indicators and threshold values to determine when which measure should take effect.” The federal government must do this. “If every country decides for itself, we will never arrive at uniform and comprehensible rules, but only increase the legal risks.”
The Professional Association of Pediatricians (BVKJ) meanwhile spoke out against compulsory masks for schoolchildren in autumn and winter. “The BVKJ is fundamentally against compulsory masks in schools,” said Jakob Maske, federal spokesman for the BVKJ, the editorial network Germany. “It is also important that there should no longer be any random tests, the sensitivity here is only 40 percent,” says the pediatrician. There are many false negative, but also false positive results.