Should everyone be vaccinated every three months? And how should the new Corona rules be controlled? It is questions like these that raise doubts among some politicians and doctors as to whether the plans for the new Infection Protection Act can be implemented in practice at all. If Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) and Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) have their way, the federal states should be allowed to impose mask requirements again from October. A mask requirement on buses, trains and planes should continue to apply nationwide, as well as a mask and test requirement in hospitals and care facilities.
The planned law is primarily criticized for the exceptions to the mask requirement: all people whose vaccination is not older than three months or who have recently had a corona infection should be exempted from the mask requirement at events or in restaurants.
Politicians in the Union in particular are calling for improvements – but criticism also comes from the FDP and SPD. After the conference of health ministers on Tuesday, several federal states, including Bavaria and Lower Saxony, had expressed doubts about the feasibility of the new Infection Protection Act.
The head of the German Hospital Society, Gerald Gass, also described the exceptions for vaccinated people as “completely impractical”. This also applies to the planned access rules for hospitals: the law stipulates that all employees and visitors to a clinic may only enter a hospital with a current test or a vaccination card that is no more than three months old and an FFP2 mask. The clinics are thus burdened with “an additional effort that cannot be implemented in this way”, said Gass Rheinische Post.
Vaccination every three months is nonsensical, says Lauterbach
Health Minister Lauterbach – currently infected with Corona himself – defended his plans. In the ARD Tagesthemen on Tuesday, he made it clear that the exceptions to the mask requirement should not be understood as a recommendation to receive a booster vaccination every three months. That is absurd and would also be “medically nonsensical”. The mask will be the rule, he said. “In the beginning, very few will be freshly vaccinated.” One could be happy if enough people were vaccinated at all. Vaccination too often, “that won’t happen,” he said.
It was also criticized that it would be difficult to control the exceptions. “Here it is provided, for example, that you can immediately see on the Corona-Warn-App from the color of the vaccination certificate whether it is a fresh vaccination or not,” said the Minister of Health. This makes control easier than with the 2G or 2G-plus rules of the past.
With regard to the expected vaccines against new virus variants, Lauterbach said he recommends that the elderly and people with risk factors get a refresher now rather than wait. There are “large vaccination gaps” in this group, and if the new vaccines come at the end of September or beginning of October, it will be “simply too long with the high incidence that we currently have”. With younger people, however, it could make sense “to wait a little longer”.
The Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) currently only recommends a fourth corona vaccination for people over the age of 70 and some risk groups. Leading EU authorities, on the other hand, have spoken out in favor of a second booster vaccination for all over 60-year-olds. Lauterbach now expects a clear guideline from the Stiko for this group: “We actually need an announcement as to who should be vaccinated and who shouldn’t. It can look like the Stiko wants it.”
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