Berlin In view of the new Omikron variant and the force of the fourth corona wave, the call for tougher countermeasures is getting louder. The Executive Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and her designated successor Olaf Scholz (SPD) have been discussing the crisis with the prime ministers of the federal states by telephone since Tuesday lunchtime.
The Union-led federal states and Baden-Württemberg are pushing for stricter corona measures in a first proposal for a resolution. The key requirements at a glance:
- Unvaccinated people are therefore only allowed to meet a maximum of five people from a maximum of two households. Vaccinated, convalescent and children under the age of twelve are not included in the total number of persons.
- Clubs and discos will be closed “because these are areas that are associated with a particularly high risk of multiple infections,” it says.
- At major events, the capacity should only be allowed to be used to a third.
- The states should also ask the federal government – if the epidemic situation of national scope is not determined by the German Bundestag – to amend the Infection Protection Act by December 10 so that lockdown measures will continue to be possible.
- In areas with an extraordinarily high seven-day incidence, restrictions beyond the above may be put in place.
Schleswig-Holstein, which is also governed by the CDU, wants the regulations for clubs, discos and major events to be incidence-dependent, i.e. not automatically to apply nationwide.
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According to information from the Reuters news agency, Olaf Scholz is said to have spoken out in favor of the introduction of a 2G obligation in retail in the federal-state switch.
What exactly can be expected from the meeting was open to the last. The SPD-led countries insisted that the summit only be used for an exchange. The executive head of the Chancellery, Helge Braun (CDU), also said on Tuesday morning that no resolutions were to be expected.
At the same time, not only the Union-led federal states and individual traffic light representatives urged that the meeting should not end without result in view of the judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court on the federal emergency brake and the worsening corona situation.
Brandenburg’s Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD) said, for example, that he considered clarification of the question of stricter corona rules across Germany to be necessary. “The situation is becoming more dramatic every day,” said the Social Democrat.
Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer also called on the federal government to act: It must “quickly change the Infection Protection Act and enable all the instruments to combat crises for the federal states,” said the CDU politician to “Bild”. He expected that “the current federal-state switch will send out a clear warning to the population”. All unnecessary contacts should be avoided in the coming weeks.
FDP sees the judgment as Karlsruhe critical
The two proceedings at the constitutional court in Karlsruhe are about the so-called federal emergency brake from the third wave of pandemics in spring. On the one hand, the lawsuits are directed against the exit and contact restrictions imposed at the time, and on the other hand against the school closings.
The emergency brake in the Infection Protection Act (Paragraph 28b) was limited in time and expired at the end of June. In the newly revised law of the future traffic light coalitionaries of the SPD, Greens and FDP, the paragraph looks different and now contains, for example, the 3G rule in the workplace.
The SPD co-chair Saskia Esken said in the ZDF “Morgenmagazin”: “We have to look at the verdict and its reasoning very carefully, of course, but we are also in a different situation today.” She referred to the higher vaccination rate than in the spring “So that those who have been vaccinated and who are now being boosted can expect that we will differentiate on the issue of restrictions, contact restrictions and also restrictions on large events and the like”.
FDP vice-president Wolfgang Kubicki, on the other hand, was disappointed with the verdict. At the same time, he called on the federal states to quickly use the possibilities of the current Infection Protection Act, as the “Rheinische Post” reported in its Wednesday edition.
The seven-day incidence fell slightly on Tuesday. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the value of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week on Tuesday morning as 452.2. A high of 452.4 had been reached on Monday. A week ago the value was 399.8 (previous month: 153.7).
More: The Constitutional Court rejects a complaint against the Corona emergency brake