Tuesday, December 14, 2021
Test obligation for boosters?
Medical officer contradicts Lauterbach
Anyone who has been vaccinated three times should not have to be tested. Federal Health Minister Lauterbach wants to discuss this with his country colleagues. Not everyone is convinced of the idea, the head of the German medical officer believes this step is premature, also because of the Omikron variant.
The German medical officers are warning of a hasty end to the compulsory test for people who have been vaccinated three times. “It is premature to exempt people with booster vaccinations from the obligation to test,” says the chairman of the Federal Association of Doctors in the Public Health Service (BVÖGD), Ute Teichert, the newspapers of the Funke media group. The omicron variant is on the advance, but it is not yet known exactly how well the booster vaccinations work against it.
“As long as we do not have enough data to be able to say this with certainty, we should not take any hasty steps” and “give up tried and tested instruments such as rapid tests,” said Teichert. The wider you test, the better you can discover infections and trace infection chains.
The German Foundation for Patient Protection also warns against the move. Giving political gifts before Christmas would be punished in January.
Virologist Martin Stürmer considers the move to be premature. Even if there is good protection against virus transmission immediately after the booster vaccination, even with the new Corona variant Omikron, the data situation is still too uncertain, said Stürmer on ZDF.
Already a reality in five federal states
In some federal states, people who have been vaccinated three times are already exempt from the obligation to test. It can apply, for example, to events with 2G-plus rules – those who have been vaccinated and those who have recovered must then also have a negative corona test. In Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate, Thuringia, Baden-Wuerttemberg and Saarland, boosters no longer need a corresponding proof. In Baden-Württemberg and Thuringia, for example, this also applies to people whose second vaccination was less than six months ago, and to those who have recovered, whose Covid 19 disease was no longer than six months ago.
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach had announced that he would be discussing a relaxation for people who have been vaccinated three times this Tuesday with the health ministers of the federal states. Sending vaccinated people with booster vaccinations for testing does not make sense from a medical point of view, said the SPD politician of the ARD.
The President of the German District Association stands behind Lauterbach. “It is easy to understand why the test is no longer required for those who have been boosted,” says district president Reinhard Sager newspapers. The protection is much more effective with the third vaccination. The Bavarian Minister of Health, Klaus Holetschek, also considers lifting the test requirement for boosters to be justifiable. This could also be “an additional vaccination incentive,” said Holetschek, who currently chairs the conference of health ministers, on ZDF on Monday. In addition, such a regulation would save test capacities.
About a general compulsory vaccination, Holetschek said: “We are simply at a point where we have to lead the discussion so that we can finally get out of this pandemic.” At the beginning of the vaccination campaign, however, it was the correct statement to exclude a general vaccination requirement.