Due to a high basic immunity, four federal states want to abolish the corona isolation requirement. The Minister of Health fears a “patchwork”.
Anyone who has had a positive corona test will no longer have to stay at home for five days in four federal states, but will be able to leave the house and go to work or school. Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hesse and Schleswig-Holstein have agreed to abolish the previous obligation to isolate infected people, they jointly announced on Friday. Other federal states are thinking about it, others reject such a step. Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) warned against lifting the isolation requirement.
To incorporate
The new rules should come into force “soon”, as announced by the four states, in Bavaria as early as next Wednesday. To do this, they must first review their Corona regulations. It is expected that anyone who is knowingly infected with Corona will officially be able to leave their home or apartment in the future, but must wear a mask indoors outside the apartment and may not enter hospitals or nursing homes. Healthcare personnel should not be allowed to work if they test positive for the corona virus.
So argue the four countries
- Many people are vaccinated or have had corona, the “basic immunity” in the population is high, the current omicron variant usually does not cause any serious disease progression.
- The currents, rather short waves in summer and this autumn indicate the transition to an endemic phase. A disease is considered endemic if it occurs in a region with a relatively constant number of cases, such as influenza.
- Most EU countries are now waiving isolation requirements for corona-infected people.
- It is a new way of dealing with Corona with more personal responsibility on the part of the people. The principle should be: “Those who are sick stay at home”.
Federal Health Minister Lauterbach was met with many head-shakes on Friday. “This comes at an inopportune time and does not find approval from the federal government,” said the SPD politician in Berlin.
So claims the Minister of Health
- At the moment there is “no medical reason” to overturn the obligation to isolate, with about 1,000 deaths a week, a “probable severe winter wave” which is arriving “on the eve of a more contagious variant”. Lauterbach called the variant BQ.1.1 of the omicron type, which spreads the most.
- The workplace must remain safe. We also need to prevent infected people from being pushed into work.
- There is a risk of a “patchwork” with different isolation rules in the federal states.
The decision on how to deal with the isolation obligation is in the hands of the individual federal states. From the federal government there is only the recommendation of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for five-day isolation, but the federal states had previously implemented it as a whole.
The next few days will show whether Lauterbach’s “patchwork” prediction will come true. In an initial reaction, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hamburg, Lower Saxony and Bremen, for example, indicated on Friday that they wanted to comply with the isolation obligation. Saxony was open to rule, Rhineland-Palatinate and Thuringia want to look into how to proceed. Other countries were reluctant and asked for a common approach.
Lower Saxony criticizes the advance
Hessian Health Minister Kai Klose (Greens) called the step “responsible and necessary” as long as the current variant of the virus is not replaced by another that could overload the health system. Virologist Hendrik Streeck is of the opinion that the isolation obligation cannot be used to contain the infection process given the high number of unreported cases. It should “pass to an isolation requirement. Anyone who feels sick should stay at home”, he told the “Fuldaer Zeitung”.
“If parents can now send their corona-infected children to kindergartens and schools, the risk of infection will logically increase there,” criticized Astrid Henke, president of the Union of Education and Science in Schleswig-Holstein. This endangers the health of educators and teachers in a non-negligible way.
Lower Saxony’s Health Minister Daniela Behrens (SPD) said she considered it “epidemiologically fundamentally wrong to waive the obligation to isolate corona-infected people in the middle of the third fall of the pandemic”. “Even people who have no symptoms can spread the virus and infect other people,” she warned.
The North German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) has also criticized the abolition of the obligation to isolate people infected with the corona virus announced by the government of Schleswig-Holstein. “The top priority is still: if you’re sick, stay home.” This is the best way to protect others from getting infected, chair Laura Pooth said when asked by dpa. However, in view of the understaffing in the healthcare system, care needs to be taken to ensure that this is possible. “The state government needs to invest much more in hospitals and urgently relieve employees’ time so they stay healthy on the job,” Pooth said.
The managing director of the association of business associations of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein (UV Nord), Michael Thomas Fröhlich, also reacted rather cautiously to the decision. “Relaxing and relying on more personal responsibility is fine, but allowing only infected people to enter the workplace with a mask is a bit short,” Fröhlich said. Safety at work must continue to be guaranteed. Many questions have remained unanswered for companies. “The economy is disappointed because the opportunity for a common and, above all, uniform northern German path has been missed, as Hamburg’s rejection of the Kieler Weg shows,” said Fröhlich.
