Several federal states are lifting the obligation to isolate in the event of corona disease.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin In the south and in the very north of Germany, people infected with corona will soon no longer have to isolate themselves automatically. Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hesse and Schleswig-Holstein want to abolish the applicable five-day quarantine obligation, as the health ministers of the four federal states announced in a joint statement on Friday.
Anyone who has a positive corona test but does not feel sick should in future only have to wear a mask when they are not at home to protect others from being infected with the virus. In Bavaria, the new regulation should apply from Wednesday (November 16th).
Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) thinks nothing of it. “This comes at an inopportune time and does not find the approval of the federal government,” he said on the sidelines of a session of the Bundestag in Berlin. “It would of course be annoying to go it alone, if that were to happen.”
He fears the number of cases will increase. “We would then have an even stronger wave than we already have to fear, and we are on the eve of a more contagious variant,” said Lauterbach. However, the coalition does not have a handle on this.
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The Baden-Württemberg Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens), on the other hand, defended the decision. “In this question, we assess the situation differently than Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach,” Kretschmann told the Handelsblatt.
“In Germany we are in the transition from a pandemic to an endemic,” he said. “This means that other rules for dealing with the corona virus must also apply – like with influenza.”
In Germany we are in the transition from a pandemic to an endemic. Baden-Württemberg Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann
It is the responsibility of the individual to get vaccinated and wear a mask to protect themselves. Only a more dangerous variant that puts the health system under stress as a whole would change this situation.
The isolation ordinance is now being revised in the four federal states and is expected to come into force in the middle of next week. Instead of the obligation to isolate, “mandatory protective measures” will then take place for infected people, as stated in a joint recommendation.
This includes a mask requirement outside of one’s own home for people over the age of six and a ban on entering and working in medical facilities.
End of the obligation to isolate: Other federal states are cautious
Bavaria’s Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU) made a similar statement. However, the federal government has refused a uniform regulation on quarantine. “That’s why we are now taking this important step towards dealing with Corona responsibly in view of the changed pandemic situation.” According to Holetschek, experts considered the decision to be justifiable.
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The ministry quoted, among other things, the Munich infectiologist Clemens Wendtner, who treated the first Covid 19 patient in Germany at the beginning of 2020: “In view of the low severity of the disease with predominantly mild courses under the omicron variant and a meanwhile high basic immunity in the population, it is the right step to lift the isolation requirement now.”
According to the four ministers, this is also shown by the positive experiences in neighboring Austria, where the mask requirement has replaced quarantine since the summer.
In a first reaction, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hamburg, Lower Saxony and Bremen indicated on Friday that they wanted to stick to the isolation requirement. Saxony was open to the rule, Rhineland-Palatinate and Thuringia want to examine how to proceed. Other countries were reluctant and called for a joint approach.
With agency material.
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