Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU) discussed the Free State’s preparations for a possible wave of corona infections in autumn with Major General Carsten Breuer, head of the Corona crisis team at the Chancellery. As the ministry announced on Wednesday, Holetschek and Breuer “agreed that the risks of the pandemic should not be underestimated”. That is why they want to “work closely together” on protective measures and on preparing for future challenges. The two exchanged experiences in a good two years of the pandemic and identified “potential for improvement”.
In another discussion in a larger group with experts from the federal government and the Bavarian ministry, digitization, early warning (which could be possible, for example, via wastewater analyses) and real-time situation reports were also discussed – as well as vaccination, testing and “crisis communication “. Holetschek said: “The pandemic has relentlessly revealed which issues we urgently need to tackle, such as securing hospital capacities and digitization.”
The minister also still considers a “practicable legal basis for future measures to combat corona” to be necessary – in order to be able to arrange masks indoors in the event of new waves, among other things. There had been a heated argument between the state government and the traffic light in Berlin in recent months about the expiry of the federal legal basis.
Holetschek also wants to keep the infrastructure of the vaccination centers up and running. One must “already start thinking about a possible fourth vaccination for broad sections of the population”. During the Corona wave last winter, when intensive care patients in Bavaria even had to be flown to other federal states, there were harsh allegations against the state government in the state parliament that they had not prepared themselves sufficiently for possible scenarios in summer 2021.
The Council of Ministers had only marginally dealt with the pandemic on Tuesday. State Chancellery Minister Florian Herrmann (CSU) said after the cabinet meeting that the number of infections was continuing to decline, as was hospital occupancy, which “would always be the main indicator and the trigger for measures”.
As of Tuesday, 225 intensive care beds were occupied by corona patients in the Free State. The Bavarian clinic traffic light introduced in 2021, whose threshold values are still guidelines for the government, provided for a red warning level at 600 occupancies. Herrmann defended the omission of almost all corona measures and also the recently canceled tests in schools and daycare centers. He sees “all in all in connection with Corona the way back to normality”. These are “justified steps in dealing with the pandemic at the current time” – but it is important to “be as well prepared as possible” for conceivable developments in the fall.
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