BERLIN – Germany’s ruling coalition is at odds over whether remaining COVID-19 restrictions should be lifted after one of the country’s top virologists was quoted as saying the pandemic is over.
Germany has scrapped most of the restrictions imposed at the height of the pandemic but, unlike other European countries, still requires mask-wearing on long-distance trains and buses. Masks are also mandatory in medical practices, while masks and negative tests are still required for entering hospitals and nursing homes.
Local transport rules are a matter for the 16 German state governments, some have dropped mask mandates. Some have also scrapped rules requiring infected people to isolate at home.
Statements by Christian Drosten, professor of virology at the Berlin Charité, in the Tuesday edition of the Tagesspiegel sparked another argument about whether the remaining rules are justified.
“We are experiencing the first endemic wave of SARS-COV 2 this winter; My assessment is that the pandemic is over with that,” he was quoted as saying. The only caveat to that is a major re-mutation, he added, “but I’m not expecting that at the moment either.”
Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said that Drosten was one of the most cautious scientists during the pandemic and “as a political consequence, we should end the last corona protection measures”. He said on Twitter that the law allows federal restrictions to be lifted ahead of their scheduled end on April 7 if the situation is better than expected in the fall — “and this is the case now.”
Buschmann’s Free Democrats, the smallest of three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition, have long been pushing for as few restrictions as possible.
There was opposition from the other two centre-left governing parties. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach told the German news agency dpa that “an immediate end to all measures would be ruthless” and Drosten did not demand that.
Lauterbach said the most vulnerable, for example in nursing homes, still needed to be protected, citing the strains the healthcare system was currently facing from various infections.
“Hospitals are full, staff are overwhelmed, mortality is high and winter is not over yet,” he said.
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