The Federal Minister of Health does not give the all-clear. On the contrary: He now wants the fourth vaccination for people aged 60 and over.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin In view of the high number of infections, the federal states are coming under increasing pressure to extend the current corona rules. For this to happen, resolutions on the so-called hotspot rule would have to be made in the state parliaments this week.
This allows the federal states to continue to use measures such as the obligation to wear masks indoors and the 3G and 2G rule even after the transitional rule for the new, nationwide Infection Protection Act expires on Saturday.
There is great disagreement between the state governments as to whether the legal requirements for identifying hotspots are currently met or not. The regulation is a topic in the afternoon at the desk of the federal and state health ministers.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has already declared the whole country a hotspot by the end of April. Hamburg intends to do the same. On the other hand, other states such as Baden-Württemberg and Lower Saxony currently see no legal basis for a hotspot regulation despite the record number of new infections, although they would welcome the measures being retained.
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At today’s Health Ministers’ Conference (GMK), some federal states will therefore push for the transitional rule to be extended by at least four weeks. This emerges from an application that is available to the Handelsblatt. Applicants include Bavaria, Saarland, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse and Baden-Württemberg.
“The GMK is of the opinion that, in view of the enormously high number of infections, the federal states need the widest possible and legally secure set of instruments with which the measures required to combat the corona pandemic can be applied responsibly as before, quickly and unbureaucratically,” it says in this.
Criteria for hotspots required
In addition, “suitable criteria would have to be specified clearly and comprehensibly for the hotspot.” Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) had already announced on Friday that he would propose four criteria for the hotspot rule to the federal states.
This includes when planned interventions can no longer be carried out in hospitals due to Corona, emergency care is at risk, care falls below lower limits or patients have to be transferred to other hospitals. With these criteria, the countries should be able to implement the hotspot regulations.
Lauterbach rejected the demand by the Bavarian Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU) for a nationwide extension of the mask requirement. “It doesn’t matter whether he proposes it or not,” Lauterbach told the “Bild”. That’s not legal.
Lauterbach: “There can be no question of a Freedom Day”
FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr insists that the federal states should not apply the new so-called hotspot regulation for stricter corona measures “generally”. “As a reminder: The hotspot regulation is an option that we have introduced for the federal states if there is a risk of the health system being overloaded in individual cities or municipalities,” Dürr told the newspapers of the Funke media group. “We have therefore created a clear legal framework. The hotspot solution is subject to strict requirements and clearly cannot be applied across the board.”
Dürr also said that the countries that were at odds with the hotspot regulation must now bear responsibility and “use the existing legal framework without exploiting it”. The countries are not defenseless in the fight against the pandemic. “Anyone who claims otherwise has either not understood the law or is afraid to take responsibility.”
More: Lauterbach: The actual number of infections is more than 600,000 per day