More and more federal states are adopting a mask requirement in Germany: on Tuesday evening there were already ten countries, on Wednesday the remaining six federal states followed suit.
There is still no uniform recommendation from the federal government.
The Mask Chaos Chronology
▶ ︎ January 28: Due to the virus epidemic in Wuhan, people with face masks are increasingly on the streets in Germany. On this day, the WDR asks whether masks are necessary for the population and refers to the World Health Organization (WHO). It says: If a pandemic spreads across borders, it expressly does not recommend masks for the entire population.
On the same day, the Vice President of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Lars Schaade, said that in Asia it was “in a way an act of courtesy” to put on a mouthguard as a sick person in order to spread fewer pathogens.
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Virologist Christian Drosten (48) added that in the course of the Sars epidemic in 2002/2003, some studies for so-called FFP3 masks wanted to suggest a protective effect. “But these were not normal masks like those seen on the street in Asia or in our operating room, but rather special fine particle masks.”
Normal masks, on the other hand, would only help against the frequent “grip on the mouth and nose – ie the smear infection”.
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▶ ︎ January 30th: Health Minister Jens Spahn (39, CDU) told BILD: “A mouth guard is not necessary because the virus cannot be transmitted via the breath at all.”
▶ ︎ Im February the Federal Association of German Pharmacists’ Associations (ABDA) approves the stance against protective masks. She explains: “Breathing masks for healthy people are unnecessary.”
▶ ︎ February 24: The RKI remains with its assessment. There is insufficient evidence that healthy people significantly reduced their risk of infection by wearing mouth and nose protection. Wearing a mask on the street as a healthy person to protect yourself from supposedly existing viruses in the air, experts have repeatedly described as nonsensical.
Rather, wearers of such masks could weigh themselves in false security, so that hygiene measures such as good hand hygiene could be neglected, writes the RKI and appeals to the World Health Organization (WHO).
▶ ︎ March 11th: At a press conference with Chancellor and RKI boss Lothar Wieler, Jens Spahn renewed the rejection: “Even the classic surgical mouthguard that many people wear provides very manageable protection, to put it this way. This is not necessary at all if you follow the rules that I described earlier with regard to respiratory diseases. “
▶ ︎ March 23: In his podcast at NDR, Drosten explains that if everyone wears a mask, the measure starts to make a lot of sense: Then it can be expected that the spread of infection will be somewhat reduced, but only at close range. “The closer to the source, the better. That is why the mask has to be at the source and not at the receiver, ”he explained. But it does not protect non-infected people: “But there is simply either no literature or – depending on how you want to interpret it – almost no evidence in the literature that this could help.”
The tenor: There is hardly anything for your own protection. But the risk of infecting other people is slightly reduced.
▶ ︎ End of March: The RKI emphasizes that self-made mouth-nose protection or another textile barrier for people with acute respiratory infections to protect other people also make sense. “On the other hand, there is insufficient evidence that wearing mouth-nose protection significantly reduces the risk of infection for a healthy person who wears it.”
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▶ ︎ March 30: Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (33) announces mandatory mouth protection in supermarkets in Austria. Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (53, SPD) at the time about BILD: “If it makes sense, something like that shouldn’t be excluded.”
However, the World Health Organization (WHO) said: There is no evidence that anything will be gained from it. “Our advice: we do not recommend wearing a face mask if you are not sick yourself,” said WHO emergency director Michael Ryan.
▶ ︎ March 31: The mouthguard obligation is decided in Jena – it applies from April 6th. The nationwide discussions about a mask requirement begin. CSU boss Markus Söder (53, CSU) explains: “You can’t rule out anything.”
On the same day, the chairman of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, Andreas Gassen, told Handelsblatt that “the obligation to wear” a mouthguard is a “purely symbolic policy”. It conveys a deceptive security, “but hardly helps at all”.
▶ ︎ April 1: Virologist Alexander Kekulé also considers simple masks, such as those used in operating theaters, to be “absolutely sensible”. “It also works if you tie a piece of an old T-shirt around your nose and mouth,” he told the weekly newspaper “Die Zeit”.
I find it very terrible that the Robert Koch Institute still holds that these masks are of no use. That’s not true. First of all, protect others, says Kekulé. “On the other hand, you protect yourself: not 100 percent, but to a certain extent.”
▶ ︎ 2nd of April: For a long time, the RKI had only advised sick people to wear mouth and nose protection in public. The agency is now completely changing its assessment: Even a simple protective mask can reduce the risk of “infecting another person by coughing, sneezing or talking”. The assumption is obvious that so-called “makeshift masks” have a protective effect
Meanwhile, the RKI website says: “For the population, the RKI recommends wearing a mouth-and-nose cover (textile barrier in the sense of an MNS) in certain situations in public space.”
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▶ ︎ April 6th: The Chancellor also changes her mind in a press conference. Angela Merkel (65, CDU) explains: “In the beginning there was more reluctance to use these masks, to the everyday masks, if I may say so now. Now the opinion of the experts is changing and of course we will not oppose it. ”
▶ ︎ April 15: Merkel and the country heads “strongly recommend” wearing a mask – but there is no obligation to wear a mask.
▶ ︎ 17th April: Saxony is the first federal state to adopt a mask requirement – it has been in effect since Monday. Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (44, CDU) said: “We need mouth protection, we need nose protection. In case of doubt, a cloth is sufficient, in case of doubt a scarf is also sufficient. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania the decision is also valid – it will apply to local transport from April 27th, for purchases these are only recommended.
▶ ︎ 20th of April: Bavaria is following suit. CSU chief Markus Söder: “Appeals alone will probably not be the necessary safeguard”, which is why the first West German state has now decided to take this step.
▶ ︎ April 21: Berlin, Saxony-Anhalt, Baden-Württemberg, Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Hesse, Thuringia are following suit.
▶ ︎ April 22: “Respiratory masks definitely protect other people and ourselves to a certain extent,” says the virologist and epidemiologist Prof. Alexander Kekulé. He advocates a comprehensive mask requirement, he says in the ZDF morning magazine.
At noon all the remaining federal states moved to: Rhineland-Palatinate, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, the Saarland and Bremen. At BILD, Bremen’s Mayor Andreas Bovenschulte (54, SPD) said: “Bremen has also decided to do this.” Before there was a “nationwide patchwork”, “we are there”.
NRW country chief Armin Laschet (59) commented on the mask chaos on Wednesday: he called it an “uncoordinated decision”, warned that a mask “should not create false security for people” and spoke out against a duty for schools !
And Jens Spahn once again took a stand on the obligation to wear a mask: “Scientific knowledge has changed. That is why it makes sense to keep your distance, to comply with hygiene rules and to wear everyday masks in certain situations. “
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