As planned, the previous legal basis for many nationwide corona restrictions will expire next weekend. According to Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, there will be no extension.
Several federal states have failed in their attempts to extend the corona protection measures by a further four weeks.
A corresponding application by the states of Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg, Hesse and Saarland did not find a majority in the deliberations of the federal and state health ministers on Monday, said Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) in Berlin. The current nationwide measures, as decided by the federal government, will expire on April 2nd at the latest.
“The countries are demanding a law that is not legal”
How to proceed in the fight against the pandemic caused sharp debates at the conference of health ministers – Lauterbach spoke of a “conflictual situation”. He called on the federal states to stop criticizing the expiry of the nationwide rules and instead to make extensive use of the hotspot regulation, with which the federal government continues to allow regionally limited corona requirements.
“The states are demanding a law that is not legal, instead of using a good law that they have,” Lauterbach criticized. He considers this to be “not appropriate”. The minister emphasized that the new Infection Protection Act allows entire countries to be declared corona hotspots, thereby enabling stricter corona requirements. There will be no renegotiations on the new law.
Lauterbach welcomed the fact that the states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Hamburg want to make use of the hotspot option and he called on other states to follow this example. “I have once again expressly asked the federal states to use the hotspot regulation,” said Lauterbach.
Lauterbach appeals
Lauterbach rejected criticism of the federal states that the criteria for the application of the hotspot regulation were not clearly defined. He listed four criteria that could apply to a hotspot – although they do not all have to apply at the same time:
- the postponement of planned interventions in hospitals due to Corona,
- the threat to emergency care,
- falling below the minimum staffing levels in the care sector
- and forcing patients to be transferred to other hospitals.
Lauterbach explained again why he no longer considers nationwide corona restrictions to be legally enforceable: such nationwide requirements are only possible if there is a threat to the nationwide health system. But such a threat is “not to be feared,” he said. The “maximum” that is now legally possible is “local control of the pandemic”.
The minister called on citizens to continue to wear masks if possible in view of the high number of infections – because the pandemic “could drag on for a long time,” he said. “A rapid change in the situation is not imminent.”
Source: Stern
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