Tuesday, December 14, 2021
Restrictions over Holidays?
Expert advice on Omikron before Christmas
The first proposal of the new Corona Expert Council could already relate to the holidays: How do the experts assess the risk of Omikron at Christmas? Health Minister Lauterbach expects a swift statement – it should be the basis for important decisions.
The Federal Government’s Expert Council wants to present an initial statement on the Omikron variant before Christmas. This should then be the basis for important decisions, said Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach after the committee’s initial discussions. The council will meet for this on Friday, “so that we can then count on quick information”. On Tuesday, the Conference of Health Ministers (GMK) also discussed the planned exemption of boosters from the obligation to test.
The Expert Council does not make any political decisions, Lauterbach clarified. “We do politics,” said the minister. “The Expert Council advises.” With a view to possible further restrictions on the festive days, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said after the most recent Prime Minister’s Conference on Thursday that they would first seek scientific expertise and see whether the measures were sufficient. If necessary, further decisions would also come on the agenda at short notice.
The council includes the chief virologist of the Berlin Charité, Christian Drosten, the head of the virological institute at the University Clinic Bonn, Hendrik Streeck, and the president of the Robert Koch Institute, Lothar Wieler. Chancellor Olaf Scholz opened the committee’s kick-off meeting.
Söder calls for national rules for Omikron
The Patient Protection Foundation criticized the fact that there is no elderly care representative on the Expert Council. “Over 50,000 deaths are to be lamented in the care of the elderly,” said Foundation Board Member Eugen Brysch. “They make up half of the deceased, infected people.” It is therefore a serious mistake to forego the participation of elderly care in the expert council.
Söder said after a joint cabinet meeting of Bavaria and Saxony in Munich: “We need uniform national rules for Omikron.” If a prime ministerial conference is no longer possible before Christmas, he thinks it is important to set a date “very early in January”. Lower Saxony’s Minister of Health Daniela Behrens said: “We are assuming (…) that we will basically have Omikron as the predominant variant in Germany at the end of January, beginning of February.”
With a view to the deliberations of the conference of health ministers, Lauterbach reiterated his initiative to free those who have been boosted from the obligation to test. Those who are freshly boosted have a very low risk of becoming infected – and an even lower risk of infecting others. When staying in hospitals and homes, however, there should be no exemption from the obligation to test, Lauterbach said with a view to the remaining risk of infection.
Does the test obligation remain for those who have been boosted?
The GMK wants to take a decision to exempt it from the obligation to test, and the consultations should also focus on stricter provisions for entry from virus variant areas. The German medical officers warned of a hasty end to the compulsory test for people with booster vaccinations. “It is premature to exempt people with booster vaccinations from the obligation to test,” said the chairman of the Federal Association of Doctors in the Public Health Service (BVÖGD), Ute Teichert, the newspapers of the Funke media group. “It would be wiser to wait and see how the pandemic develops in the coming weeks.”
The left in the Bundestag rejected the elimination of the obligation to test for people with a booster vaccination. It is right to create incentives for vaccination, said parliamentary group leader Amira Mohamed Ali, but “the wrong way is to create incentives for not being tested.”
Lauterbach also called on the federal states to adopt a uniform line for booster vaccinations. Evidence-based and uniform rules are necessary. In this context, he was skeptical of the initiative by North Rhine-Westphalia to booster vaccinations after just four weeks. He does not know of any literature that advocates this, said the minister. A period of four months is under discussion.
The head of the North Rhine General Practitioner Association, Oliver Funken, also described the four-week period as too short. Although it makes sense to shorten it to four to five months, he told the Düsseldorf “Rheinische Post”. The four weeks planned in North Rhine-Westphalia are “already questionable from a medical point of view if there is no specific reason for it”.