The Corona variant Omikron is spreading rapidly. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach therefore wants to propose tougher rules at the federal-state conference on Friday. Everyday life is likely to become even more difficult, especially for those who have not been vaccinated.
At the next federal-state conference on Friday, Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) wants to push through shortened quarantine times and further tightening of the contact restrictions due to the threatened spread of the corona virus. “Unfortunately, tightening will be necessary in order to counter the heavy wave that is coming our way,” Lauterbach told the newspapers of the editorial network Germany (RND). “I will make suggestions,” he emphasized, without wanting to give details.
The restrictions are particularly important for unvaccinated people. “I would like to spare the unvaccinated that they come to the intensive care unit,” said the SPD politician. They should therefore get vaccinated “quickly” at least once.
Lauterbach gives a new target for booster vaccinations
The Minister of Health set a new target for the booster vaccination campaign. “According to the modeling of the Robert Koch Institute, the goal should be that more than 80 percent of those who have been vaccinated twice are also boosted, i.e. 56 percent of the population,” he told the RND. The additional contact restrictions together with the refreshments would lower the R value, which indicates how many people an infected person infects on average.
According to the RND, 59.3 million people have been double-vaccinated so far. 32.7 million people received a booster vaccination. This corresponds to 55 percent of all those who have been vaccinated twice. Lauterbach’s 80 percent target means that around 47.5 million people must receive a booster vaccination. That is around 15 million more people than currently.
Lauterbach again campaigned for an early introduction of the general compulsory vaccination. “The vaccination must come quickly,” he told the RND. “We cannot wait for a compulsory vaccination to become superfluous because we have a very high level of infection in the population”. He is working on a proposal for mandatory vaccination for people over the age of 18. Lauterbach “prefers” to do without a vaccination register. A register of this kind is seen by many experts as the key to enforcing compulsory vaccination – data protectionists, however, urge caution.
Shortening the quarantine without risk?
Lauterbach also defended his attempt to shorten the quarantine period. “The shortening is based on science,” he told the RND. Studies have shown that the generation time – including the phase in which the virus spreads in the body and the phase in which a person is contagious – is much shorter with Omikron. “So we can shorten the quarantine period to a certain extent without taking any risks,” he said.
The shortening is also necessary because “certain areas of the critical infrastructure” could be affected by the increasing contagion of staff shortages – in particular hospitals, elderly care as well as the police, fire brigade and the supply of water and electricity. “New quarantine and isolation rules are necessary for these areas The minister stressed that school and travel should also be taken into account.
The prime ministers of the federal states will meet with representatives of the federal government on Friday to reassess the pandemic situation in Germany. The heads of the federal and state governments want to advise on shortening the quarantine and isolation times, with which personnel bottlenecks at important facilities are to be avoided. The health ministers are already discussing this on Wednesday. The ministers of education will also meet on Wednesday. They are expected to speak out in favor of keeping schools open despite the increased spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.
Source From: Stern
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