COVID-19 pandemic is not over yet, warns Germany

BERLIN (AP) — The coronavirus pandemic is not over yet, Germany’s health minister warned on Thursday, as the country’s highest court approved rules requiring healthcare workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Health Minister Karl Lauterbach referred to the sharp increase in cases that is taking place in some Asian countries, such as North Korea, but also in parts of Europe.

“Also in Germany, an average of 130 to 150 people die every day due to the pandemic,” Lauterbach told reporters in Berlin. “So the impression that the pandemic has been defeated is wrong.”

Lauterbach was holding a two-day meeting with his G7 counterparts on Thursday and Friday.

US Health Secretary Xavier Becerra was scheduled to attend in person but tested positive for COVID-19 in Berlin on Wednesday, a day after meeting in Germany with the minister and other leading figures in the pandemic response. Becerra planned to participate in the meetings via video, according to the officials.

Lauterbach said health ministers from the G7 countries would conduct an exercise on how to respond to a new pandemic, with a fictional new strain of smallpox that spreads to humans through a leopard bite and mainly affects youths.

“This scenario has a realistic undertone,” he said, referring to the recent outbreak of monkeypox in Britain, Portugal and the United States.

Lauterbach said cases of monkeypox would also be discussed, along with the increased risk of disease spreading from animals to humans due to climate change.

Separately, Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court announced Thursday that it has rejected complaints against compulsory vaccination of health workers, arguing that the importance of protecting vulnerable people in hospitals and nursing homes outweighs any infringement of the rights of the employees.

The limited mandate went into effect in mid-March. The court had previously refused to issue an injunction blocking his application while it made a final decision.

–