Risk of a longer wave
Lauterbach dampens relaxation euphoria
02/06/2022, 8:35 p.m
The calls for a loosening perspective are getting louder. The federal and state governments will discuss the steps towards fewer corona rules in mid-February. After that, according to plans in Baden-Württemberg, things could go very quickly.
In the debate about possible easing of the corona measures, politicians from the SPD and Greens warned against hasty opening at the weekend. If the easing is too early, “we unnecessarily question our own success and risk new, dangerous infections and an extension of the wave,” said Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach of the “Bild am Sonntag”. The FDP and some federal states, on the other hand, have called for early opening steps.
Concrete steps should be decided at the federal-state conference in the middle of the month, said FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr of the “Welt”. The first thing to do is to lift the 2G rule in retail, and the contact restrictions for vaccinated people should also be checked. The Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Malu Dreyer, also wants “clever ideas for facilitation” for the federal-states. People must be given security “that there will be easing again,” she told the “Rheinische Post”. However, Dreyer emphasized that we first had to wait for the peak of the omicron wave.
Baden-Württemberg is already working on a relaxation plan
Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder called for a step-by-step plan from the federal government. “We should take further steps to open up culture, sport and trade if the hospital numbers remain stable,” he told the “Bild am Sonntag”. Baden-Württemberg’s Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann and Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil spoke out against quick easing. Kretschmann said on Deutschlandfunk on Saturday that easing would “come of course” if the burden on the health system allowed it. However, he could not “imagine an exit strategy before Easter”.
However, government circles in Stuttgart also said that the state was working on a relaxation plan that could possibly take effect at the end of February. According to the German Press Agency, a hearing by the Ministry of Social Affairs with clinic representatives and scientists on February 18 will clarify whether further opening steps are responsible.
The meeting shortly after the federal-state meeting planned for February 16 will deal with the question of whether there are still enough beds in the normal wards of the hospitals in the southwest to be able to take in more Covid patients. The background is that the peak of the omicron wave is expected in mid-February. If the capacities are sufficient or can be expanded, which is assumed, the measures should be relaxed further towards the end of February, it said.
“Taking back fundamental rights encroachments bit by bit”
Saarland Prime Minister Tobias Hans currently sees no reason to relax. “Of course, now is not the time to relax, especially with high incidences,” he told the Welt television station. “But we have to prepare for the time, because the apex of the wave will also have been passed.” With a view to a loosening perspective at the federal-state conference, Hans said that the expectation of the prime ministers’ conference was “that these steps will be discussed and prepared together”.
The Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hendrik Wüst, made a similar statement on ZDF: “The easier course of the disease at Omikron gives us the opportunity to withdraw the encroachments on fundamental rights bit by bit when the apex, if the peak of this wave has been reached,” said Wüst in the “heute journal “.
The black-green Hessian state government has meanwhile announced that some measures will no longer apply in Hesse from Monday. The 2G rule will be abolished in retail and more spectators will be admitted to major events.