Tuesday, December 21, 2021
“Not ideal”
Lauterbach criticizes RKI for debt papers
A few hours before a new federal-state conference on corona policy, the Robert Koch Institute is demanding immediate and “maximum” contact restrictions. Health Minister Lauterbach, who had just ruled out a lockdown before Christmas, is irritated.
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has criticized the timing of the publication of the latest strategy paper from the Robert Koch Institute. The Prime Ministers are currently discussing the Corona situation with Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Lauterbach also takes part in the meeting. Participants said that Lauterbach said about the RKI paper that it was “not ideal and not coordinated”.
The publication of the paper shortly before the Bund-Länder-Round caused confusion among the Prime Ministers, according to ntv information. Several heads of state government wanted to know from Scholz whether he was adopting the RKI’s warning. Saxony pleaded for a lockdown at the Prime Minister’s Conference (MPK).
The Robert Koch Institute published its paper on Twitter a few hours before the beginning of the Bund-Länder-Round. The institute calls for, among other things, “maximum contact restrictions”, “maximum infection preventive measures” and a “reduction of travel to what is absolutely necessary”. The RKI expressly points out that these measures “should begin immediately and should initially be maintained until mid-January 2022”. The phase of maximized contact restrictions must be used to advance vaccinations and booster vaccinations.
RKI fears that the health system will be overloaded
The RKI also writes in the paper that even if the Omikron wave in Germany is still in its infancy, a look abroad shows “that this variant will result in a wave of infections with a dynamic that has not yet been observed”. As early as the beginning of January, Omikron could identify the majority of infections and tens of thousands of cases of infection every day. If this dynamic is not slowed down, an overload of the health system is to be expected. Like the Federal Government’s Expert Council, the RKI also fears that critical infrastructures such as energy supply, police and fire services will be adversely affected by illness-related failures.
Lauterbach had ruled out a lockdown for Christmas on the weekend. Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder was “extremely irritated” about the communication between the federal government and the RKI before the beginning of the federal-state consultations. It was “extremely unfortunate” when there were new messages almost every hour, said Söder on Tuesday after a cabinet meeting in Munich. “If the ministry and the main agency contradict each other, it leaves more question marks than exclamation marks.”
With a view to the draft resolution from the Chancellery for the Bund-Länder-Round, Söder said: “We are surprised at what the federal government is doing.” The paper does not propose any new contact restrictions as early as Christmas, but individual contact limits for family celebrations, but real restrictions “from December 28th at the latest”.