Before their meeting, Chancellor Merkel and the country leaders sought advice from experts. Your vote is clear: not only to extend lockdown, but also to tighten it.
By Kai Küstner, ARD capital studio
Having to make important decisions while flying blind: Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Prime Ministers faced this difficult task when they posted two weeks ago because the number of infections was not really reliable. At today’s federal-state consultations, which begin at 2 p.m., it is the new, aggressive, and probably highly contagious virus mutations about which far too little is known. “Especially when something like this is unclear, you have to be particularly careful,” warns Hamburg’s First Mayor Peter Tschentscher, adding: “That means that we now have to extend the measures.”
It is certain that this will happen until at least mid-February. The big question is what tightening the federal and state governments will provide for the extension. The fact that they consider this to be necessary was indicated by the experts questioned by Merkel and Co. for information about the ARD capital studios not the slightest doubt. They therefore warned urgently of the new virus variant and advised, for example, to expand the home office and swift vaccinations.
But what is politics doing now?
“FFP2 masks are certainly necessary where the distances cannot be maintained,” says Saxony-Anhalt’s Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff. In Bavaria, the special masks, which protect better than a mouth and nose cover made of fabric, are already mandatory when traveling by bus, train or shopping.
But also not without pitfalls: “They have to fit, they must not lead to the mask being breathed past”, warns Tschentscher. The FFP-2 masks often do not fit properly, especially with beards. And at around three euros each, they are not affordable for everyone in large numbers. Which is why a duty to wear “medical masks” is under discussion, which would also include cheaper surgical masks.
More home office, fewer bus and train drivers
However, in the opinion of many, masks alone do not help to make bus and train travel safer. Here the contacts are to be thinned: “It is expressly not about the setting of the public transport”, Merkel’s chief spokesman Steffen Seibert clarified once again as a precaution. If more people work from the home office, they are less squeezing into buses and trains.
Following this logic, the SPD countries in particular want stricter rules. There are legal possibilities here by ordinance to make companies more responsible – at least for a limited time, says Labor Minister Hubertus Heil: “This actually affects binding rules with regard to the possibility of home office as an offer for employees, wherever that is operationally possible. “
More home office, less jostling in the bus and train, expanded mask requirement: Everything is discussed, nothing has been decided yet. Also not a taboo: border controls with neighbors. It is clear that you have to talk to your European partners anyway: What use is it if Luxembourg opens the hairdressers and the Saarlanders commute to the neighboring country to have their hair cut?
Controversial issue of curfews
And then there is the excitement of curfews. “We think it’s a very, very strong interference with the freedom of the population,” warns the Rhineland-Palatinate Prime Minister Malu Dreyer. Night curfews are already known in some regions. But not only in SPD-led federal states there is resistance; Schleswig-Holstein’s CDU Prime Minister Daniel Günther also spoke out against it.
So there are a lot of unanswered questions – just like almost every federal-state switch. One thing, however, seems to be agreed: Shutting down companies and shutting down entire branches of the economy is a must. Otherwise, Merkel and the country leaders are once again faced with a delicate task: Having to make serious decisions without being able to predict what the virus mutation that has come from Great Britain will do. There are many indications that it is better to play it safe and take precautions.
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