Monday, January 10, 2022
Minister rejects allegations
Lauterbach: No more mental disorders due to lockdowns
The federal government is adopting strict measures to get the pandemic under control. But is the German corona policy also the reason for the increase in mental illness in the population? Health Minister Lauterbach says no and also refers to other countries.
Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach has rejected allegations that the German corona policy, with its somewhat stricter international measures, is responsible for the increase in mental disorders. “You have to be careful that the studies don’t show that in my opinion,” said the SPD politician in the evening on the ARD program “Hard but fair”. There are more mental disorders even in countries that have done less than Germany. He cited the USA as an example, where, in his opinion, a great number of deaths could have been avoided.
The disruptions are presumably more due to the corona situation as a whole than to the protective measures. He called the British government’s waiver of strict measures despite the explosion in the number of infections an “unethical bet”.
With its course of protecting people, Germany did not do any worse economically than Great Britain, for example. The British course is also out of the question because the vaccination rate in Germany, especially among older people, is much worse than that in Great Britain.
“I would like a strategy like the one in England, which boils down to contamination without anyone wanting to call it that, I would never recommend such a strategy. And the federal government is not available for that either.”
With a view to complaints from doctors about an inadequate supply of vaccines, Lauterbach said: “It is up to the federal states to make this allocation. And I would also imagine a slightly different allocation from country to country.”
Overall, there is more vaccine than necessary to be able to cover the entire population who are ready for booster vaccinations – but not the one from the manufacturers Biontech and Pfizer, but above all that from Moderna. Moderna cans were bought in large quantities, but Biontech could not be sufficiently procured “for production reasons”.