In the absence of their own majority in the upcoming vote this week, the advocates of general vaccination presented a compromise proposal on Monday. The parliamentarians from the traffic light parties SPD, Greens and FDP want to approach the Union parliamentary group, which so far only wants to introduce compulsory vaccination after the establishment of a vaccination register and after another bombardment of the Bundestag. The proposal is also aimed at the smaller group of supporters of a possible vaccination requirement from the age of 50.
The compromise proposal takes up core elements of the other two groups. It stipulates that from October 1, 2022, vaccination will initially only apply to people over the age of 50. The group, which is also supported by Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (both SPD), is moving away from the immediate introduction of compulsory vaccination. The Bundestag should not decide until the beginning of September whether there should also be compulsory vaccination for 18 to 49 year olds. In addition, MEPs are ready to quickly set up a vaccination register.
The group that presented the proposal on Monday included Dagmar Schmidt, Heike Baehrens and Dirk Wiese from the SPD, Till Steffen and Janosch Dahmen from the Greens, and Katrin Helling-Plahr and Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann from the FDP.
The SPD health politician Dagmar Schmidt, who advocated compulsory vaccinations from the age of 18, said her group saw it as its responsibility to try again to enforce compulsory vaccination. The original application found 237 supporters, more than any other. At the same time, she said that the other groups had not been willing to talk so far. The Greens politician Till Steffen says that the proposal is primarily aimed at the Union.
Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach said of the new compromise proposal: “He takes the most important things from all applications for compulsory vaccination.” Anyone who wants compulsory vaccination can find themselves here. “But if you vote against it, you risk lockdowns and suffering again in the fall.”
The proposed changes are an attempt to find a compromise with another cross-party group and the Union faction in the Bundestag. Parliament will vote on a possible general corona vaccination requirement on Thursday. (04.04.2022)
First day of sale without a mask requirement in many shops
Anyone who goes shopping no longer has to wear a mask in large parts of Germany. The supermarkets, discounters and other shops will open their doors this Monday and, for the first time in about two years, will be allowed to let in customers who do not wear a mouth and nose cover. After the federal and state governments had relaxed their corona measures accordingly, the mask requirement had already fallen in Berlin on Friday, and then in most other federal states on Sunday – there it was already possible to shop in shops that were open on Sundays without a mask, such as at train stations. Now the mask requirement is falling on a grand scale.
Hamburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania are sticking to the obligation to wear them as part of a so-called hotspot regulation. Other federal states refrained from taking such a special path. Since the end of April 2020, wearing a mask in shops had been mandatory nationwide.
In retail, the end of duty is causing mixed feelings. The Verdi union reported concern among employees about the risk of infection. There are also many critical voices among employers.
In a survey of retailers by the Bavarian Retail Association, a narrow majority said they thought the end of the mask requirement was wrong. According to the survey, 11.7 percent of retailers in Bavaria want to stick to the mask requirement in their shops. However, the large retail chains are not among them – they are not obliged to wear them, for example at Rewe, Lidl, Aldi and Edeka in the food sector, at the furniture retailer Ikea, at the bookstore chain Thalia or the textile chains H&M and Primark. Sometimes, however, customers are advised to continue to wear a mask voluntarily. (04.04.2022)
The nationwide incidence value continues to fall
The nationwide seven-day incidence has continued to fall. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the value of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week on Monday morning as 1425. The day before, the value was 1458. The health authorities in Germany reported 41,129 new corona infections to the RKI within one day. According to the new information, 23 deaths were recorded across Germany within 24 hours.
When looking at the values, it must be taken into account that individual states do not report data on every weekday; Baden-Württemberg, Lower Saxony and Brandenburg, for example, do not report at all or not completely at weekends. This in turn leads to late registrations on the following days. A comparison of daily values is therefore becoming increasingly difficult.
