/picture alliance, Christophe Gateau
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Düsseldorf – In view of the high number of new infections with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, the health ministers of five federal states have spoken out in favor of extending the stricter corona measures that are still possible until April 2 by four weeks.
That would enable the federal states to maintain the protective measures that are still in force without the need for resolutions by the state parliaments, said North Rhine-Westphalia’s Health Minister Karl-Josef Laumann (CDU) today.
At the same time, Laumann and his colleagues from Saarland, Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria and Hesse called on the federal government to clarify the unresolved questions about the implementation of the hotspot regulation in a timely manner.
A nationwide uniform procedure must be ensured. The ministers have requested a special meeting of the conference of health ministers, which is expected to take place next Monday.
The infection protection law amended by the Berlin traffic light coalition had previously met with widespread protest from the federal states. After a transitional period until April 2nd, they can only impose further restrictions with more mask requirements and access rules for regional so-called hotspots if the state parliament determines a critical situation for them. Thresholds from when this is the case are not quantified.
“The number of cases nationwide is higher than ever and the health care system continues to be heavily burdened,” said Laumann. The federal government must improve the Infection Protection Act. “On the current legal basis, we cannot implement measures to protect the population and prevent the healthcare system from being overloaded quickly enough and with legal certainty.”
The federal government has set high hurdles for the hotspot regulation with the new Infection Protection Act, but at the same time has not defined the application sufficiently clearly, said the NRW minister. It must be made clear that a hotspot can also be the entire federal state.
The previous criteria for designating a corona hotspot are also not legally secure and unclear. The state parliaments should also be given the opportunity to make the hotspot regulation as a precautionary measure as part of a so-called advance resolution in order to be able to act more quickly. © dpa/aerzteblatt.de
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