Dispute over corona rules: why Lauterbach has to deliver now

Nadine Bader
ARD Capital Studio

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At the top of his Twitter account, three happy faces smile at you: himself and the top Green government duo, Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck. It’s a somewhat shaky selfie Lauterbach pinned last December. “Now the actual project begins …” he writes.

With Team Freedom on the government bench

Coincidentally or not, the liberal coalition partner is missing from the picture. Almost as if Lauterbach wanted to hide the fact that with the FDP, Team Freedom is now sitting on the government bench together with Team Caution. For the admonishing Minister Lauterbach, this became a challenge right from the start. A circumstance that has already demanded some compromises and defeats from him.

The failure of the general obligation to vaccinate, for example, or the end of most corona protection measures in March. Back then in the spring, the restrictions were greatly reduced. This eliminated, for example, general mask requirements when shopping or at events as well as access rules such as 2G or 3G.

While the Liberals celebrate having enforced easing in the traffic light government, Lauterbach speaks in the Bundestag in March of a difficult compromise.

Where is the plan for the fall?

Such a compromise is now pending again. Because Germany needs a plan for the possible next corona wave in autumn and winter. And the Infection Protection Act expires on September 23rd. If protective measures such as mask requirements or access restrictions are to continue to be possible afterwards, a new legal basis is needed for this.

Lauterbach has to negotiate this with Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann from the FDP. A tedious process that has dragged on for several weeks. The two ministers interpret the initial situation very differently.

Bushman rules out lockdowns

Buschmann basically rules out interventions such as lockdowns, school closures and curfews. Quite different Lauterbach, who initially wants to keep the instrument box for protective measures as wide as possible.

Especially since the trust in the cooperation has probably suffered a bit. Some say that the doctor and epidemiologist Lauterbach fears that he will be fooled by the lawyer Buschmann when it comes to the details of a possible agreement. So it remains a difficult undertaking, which seems to have started moving only last week.

In conversation with the ARD Capital Studio says Lauterbach that the possibility of school closures will no longer exist. The talks would be concluded shortly. So far, the justice and health ministers have also agreed that the obligation to wear masks indoors should play a role.

Countries urge more speed

Meanwhile, countries are getting impatient. They always worry that they are not being sufficiently involved. They are dependent on a legal basis from the federal government in order to be able to implement appropriate protective measures. The state health ministers had called for a draft law before the summer break. With powers such as mask requirements, access restrictions and school closures in emergencies.

Bavaria’s Health Minister Klaus Holetschek from the CSU, for example, accuses the federal government of a lack of transparency and traction in the preparation of the new Infection Protection Act. Last week he was in Berlin for talks at the Federal Ministry of Health and asked Lauterbach to tell the federal states what measures he was planning. Lauterbach put him off. “That was a missed opportunity to involve us and the countries in communication at an early stage,” says Holetschek. Instead, the SPD and FDP would harp each other on Twitter.

Emergency rooms partly overloaded

In medicine, there are great expectations that health and justice ministers will reach a reasonable compromise. Christian Karagiannidis, a member of the Federal Government’s Expert Council, currently sees one major problem in particular. In particular, due to the chronic shortage of staff and the many staff shortages caused by Corona, the emergency rooms are already heavily loaded, sometimes overloaded. That is unusual for the summer. He has never experienced anything like this, says the intensive care doctor. Karagiannidis speaks of a warning sign. “If we already have such a problem in summer, then we’ll have a problem in autumn and winter.”

In order to counteract an overload in the health care system, a compromise from the point of view of the intensive care physician would have to include a mask requirement indoors in any case. In addition, Karagiannidis recommends optional measures such as access restrictions for indoor events, such as a daily test. “Whether and to what extent such measures are then used should depend on the infection process,” says Karagiannidis. “But we absolutely must have the opportunity to do so, for example if the more dangerous Delta variant were to develop further.”

More than just Corona Ministers

The doctor has one more expectation: “We have to see that Lauterbach gets away from just this one Corona issue.” Lauterbach has long been the first health minister who could bring about a fundamental change in the health system, for example in the hospital sector or in the field of nursing. But here, too, Lauterbach will have to coordinate with the Liberals again.

Because the reforms will cost something and Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner from the FDP wants to keep the money together. For Lauterbach, it remains a tightrope walk with his liberal colleagues in the traffic light coalition. Above all, but not only when it comes to infection control.

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