In view of the rising corona numbers, more stringent measures are being considered in the first federal states. In Berlin, for example, the obligation to wear masks in shops, museums and other public buildings could soon be reintroduced. Considerations from the Berlin health administration became known on Wednesday. Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach called on the federal states to use the possibilities for corona measures in the amended Infection Protection Act, “in particular the obligation to wear masks indoors”.
“I think it’s a misconception to believe that the autumn and winter wave that is now beginning will limit itself,” said the SPD politician on Wednesday during the government survey in the Bundestag. The nationwide seven-day incidence indicated by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has been increasing for several weeks and was 799.9 on Wednesday morning (previous week: 414.0; previous month: 216.0).
There are currently more corona-positive patients in the clinics than at the peak of the summer wave, said the CEO of the German Hospital Society Gerald Gass on Wednesday in Berlin. “We have an increase of 50 percent compared to the previous week, that’s quite a dynamic that we’re experiencing there.”
Great additional effort in the clinics
The patients are mostly in normal wards and often come to the hospital with a corona infection and not because of severe Covid symptoms. “But of course they cause a lot of extra work in the hospital.” Gass named necessary isolation measures and greater personnel costs for patients who tested positive. Rooms could also not be occupied so densely. In addition, there are “high failure rates” among employees due to their own infections.
According to his own statements, the DKG CEO expects longer waiting times in the clinics for planned treatments in the coming weeks and that wards with a reduced number of beds will be run or even canceled.
The board of directors of the German Foundation for Patient Protection, Eugen Brysch, was critical of this. There was still a lack of daily data from the clinics on the situation. However, restrictive measures could not be justified without these facts from the hospitals, he told the dpa. “There should no longer be general postponements of so-called plannable operations without meaningful data for patients.”
Well prepared for the next wave
Lauterbach spoke of a currently high incidence of hospitalization – i.e. many hospital cases – “but the number of deaths is significantly lower than we had a year ago and we owe that to the effect of the vaccines”. He confirmed that one was very well prepared for the autumn and winter wave and referred to adapted vaccines, medication for particularly vulnerable groups and possible corona measures that, according to the Infection Protection Act, the federal states can take independently.
In the next few days and weeks it will be decided to what extent they will make use of it. The first steps were indicated on Wednesday in Berlin: Health Senator Ulrike Gote announced a proposal for the next week to reintroduce the obligation to wear masks in shops or museums, for example. “We are currently seeing that the infections in Berlin are increasing very sharply, which is putting a heavy strain on the health system,” said the Green politician.
In Saarland, which has the highest seven-day incidence nationwide, there was initially an appeal after a government spokesman had previously announced that the government would announce new decisions on corona measures “very promptly”. Health Minister Magnus Jung (SPD) called on people on Wednesday to wear masks indoors again. A tightening of the corona rules, for example with an extension of the mask requirement, is not initially planned. However, this is a possible step if the situation does not improve.
In the past two Corona years, there has been a kind of domino effect in the measures: One federal state tightened or relaxed rules, others came under pressure and followed suit.
