These corona rules should apply in Germany from autumn

Berlin The Federal Council has passed new corona rules for autumn and winter. The planned innovations are based on a draft by Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) and Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP).

The central provisions include the obligation to wear masks on long-distance trains, clinics and medical practices. Countries can also reintroduce the wearing of masks in restaurants and other indoor spaces. This obligation should no longer apply in airplanes. An overview of the rules.

Infection Protection Act: These are the new corona rules

The new corona measures apply from October 1st to April 7th. The previous corona regulations in the Infection Protection Act expire before then. The legislative process for the new rules must be completed by then.

The Bundestag resolution provides for the following provisions in the Infection Protection Act:

• FFP2 masks are mandatory in clinics, nursing homes and medical practices nationwide. Masks are also compulsory on long-distance trains, although a simpler surgical mask is sufficient for children between the ages of six and 13. Masks are now no longer compulsory on airplanes, but the federal government should be able to introduce them by ordinance without the consent of the Bundesrat. In addition to the mask, a negative test should be presented before entering nursing homes and clinics.
• From October 1st, the federal states should be able to impose further requirements. This also includes the obligation to wear masks in local transport with buses and trains. Masks should also be mandatory again in publicly accessible indoor spaces such as shops and restaurants – with the mandatory exception that you don’t need a mask if you show a negative test in gastronomy and at cultural, leisure or sporting events.
• Tests should be mandatory in schools and daycare centers. From class five, masks are also compulsory in schools, provided this is “necessary to maintain regulated face-to-face teaching”.
• In a second stage, the federal states can make further specifications with a state parliament resolution, when the corona situation becomes more critical regionally. This also includes the obligation to wear masks at outdoor events if distances of 1.50 meters are not possible there. Hygiene concepts for companies and other facilities can be prescribed. In addition, visitor limits for indoor events should be possible.

Nursing homes get special payments

A new nationwide vaccination campaign is also planned. The aim is to provide information about the vaccines that have been adapted to new virus variants. In addition, drugs should be used more intensively in people with Covid 19, as Lauterbach announced. There should also be better, up-to-date data on hospital occupancy.

In order to strengthen the protection of those in need of care who are particularly at risk, homes must also appoint officers who take care of vaccinations, hygiene and therapies for those who are ill, for example with the drug Paxlovid.

Criticism of rules for children and young people

With the new regulation, Corona is included in a list of particularly contagious infectious diseases such as cholera, measles, whooping cough and plague. Persons who are ill or who are suspected may only enter schools and daycare centers with a medical certificate or a negative test – a five-day quarantine alone is not enough.

Schleswig-Holstein’s Education Minister Karin Prien (CDU) called this a “disaster for schoolchildren”: Schleswig-Holstein could not agree in the Bundesrat. The societies for pediatric and adolescent medicine (DGKJ) and for pediatric infectiology (DGPI) as well as the professional association of paediatricians (BVKJ) see it like Prien. Even if the cold persists, children can be asked to take a new test every day. There is a risk of arbitrariness.

Many federal states had also criticized in advance that there were no clear criteria as to when a second, stricter level of regulation would apply to the corona measures.

Corona rules: criticism of the lack of criteria for the second stage

Bavaria’s Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU) was disappointed at the end of August. “We need orientation for such early warning systems as wastewater monitoring and RKI surveillance, where a lot is still open,” he said. “When should which measures be triggered? How are the parameters weighted among each other? I would like answers from the federal government on this.”

>> Read here: “Wearing masks indoors should be the rule” – Lauterbach specifies the Corona autumn plan

He sees the danger of a “patchwork” of different assessments and rules in the countries. “And nobody can want that.”

In the economy, too, there was concern about such a patchwork quilt. “Any excessive burden on employers, employees and customers must be excluded,” said Employer President Rainer Dulger in August. “Rather, uniform legal applications and criteria for measures by the federal states are necessary.” He also called for a joint vaccination campaign by the federal government and industry.

Health Minister Lauterbach, on the other hand, promised: “We will enable the federal states to offer exactly what is necessary depending on the pandemic situation – no more, but also no less.” The federal states could and would fall back on it. “We will have the situation under control.”

>> Read also: Biontech could deliver first Omicron vaccine in early September

Minister of Justice Buschmann assured that the new corona rules contain “no lockdowns, no company closures, no school closures, no bans on demonstrations”. However, almost all experts expected the infection situation to worsen. The state must therefore be made capable of acting.

Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder criticized it as “absurd” that you no longer have to wear a mask on the plane, but that the mask requirement still applies to long-distance travel, as the CSU boss said in the evening on the ARD program “Maischberger”. Lauterbach defended the regulation, among other things, with better air circulation in the aircraft. Should it become necessary, the federal government will again impose an FFP2 mask requirement on airplanes.

First publication: 08/24/22 09:31 (updated 09/16/22 09:31).

More: New drugs against Covid give hope – and promise manufacturers billions in profits