As a lesson from the corona pandemic, Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn calls for the role of the state as a whole to be discussed anew and to examine how Germany and the EU could be less dependent on China. “So if we have experienced one thing that is really painful in this pandemic (…), it is the far too great dependence on China,” said Spahn at the “Day of the German Family Business” in Berlin. The view of the tasks of the state has changed with the pandemic. Spahn: “I don’t mean a strong state in the sense of bureaucracy, who distributes best to (…), but I mean a strong state as a serving state, as a protective state, not as a restrictive, know-it-all state.”
Under pressure to justify: Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn
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Spahn is currently the first public servant in the health sector and is therefore responsible for dealing with the corona pandemic. There have been allegations against him for some time because of defects or inadequate quality tests on protective masks. This is primarily about masks that were ordered and forwarded in China in the early days of the corona pandemic. There are also allegations that Spahn later planned to distribute these masks to the homeless.
Opposition calls for an investigation into the mask affair
The Vice-Chairman of the Liberals, Wolfgang Kubicki, has promised a Bundestag investigation committee into the government’s corona management that the FDP has requested – but not immediately. “It needs to be dealt with in parliament after the election,” said Kubicki at a party congress of the Thuringian FDP in Erfurt. Kubicki, who is also Vice President of the Bundestag, criticized, among other things, the purchase of “unsuitable masks” by the Ministry of Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU). When they were examined, two out of eight criteria were deleted. “It is a human and legal mess to believe people are safe, which does not exist.”
I want to look back, but only after the federal election – Wolfgang Kubicki from the FDP
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Attempts to explain
CDU boss and candidate for chancellor Armin Laschet meanwhile took his party colleague Spahn under protection. “In retrospect, all the clever ones come now,” said Laschet at a party event in Schleswig-Holstein, thereby also criticizing the coalition partner SPD, who attacked Spahn harshly because of the mask affair. The market for masks was simply closed last spring. There have been calls for help from hospitals. In the situation, the government had to react.
Progress in vaccination in Germany
In the meantime, the pandemic situation in Germany has eased. The seven-day incidence is currently 18.3 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants. Spahn attributes these numbers not least to the progress made with vaccinations. In the meantime, more than 40 million people in Germany have received at least one vaccination against the coronavirus. This corresponds to 48.1 percent of the total population, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute (as of Saturday). More than one in four (21.35 million people) are now fully vaccinated. Reason enough for Spahn to spread these figures on Twitter from his account.
fab/uh (dpa, Twitter)
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