Esome members of the federal government are sailors, almost all are drivers. Both groups are preparing for the cold season in exactly the same amount of time, as the cabinet said on Wednesday: from October to Easter, the winter tires would be put on and the sailing boats would be taken out of the water. That is why the ministers involved like to refer to the innovations in the Infection Protection Act presented on Wednesday as a “winter tire regulation” against the next wave of the corona pandemic.
The changes should apply from October 1st to Good Friday of the next year, i.e. until April 7th. The previous law, which expires on September 23, will be extended by a few days. The cabinet wants to decide on the changes by August 24th. They are then to be integrated into an amendment to strengthen civil protection against Covid-19, which is already in the parliamentary process, and will be adopted by the Bundestag and Bundesrat in September.
The image of the winter tires serves to convey security in uncertain times. Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) and many experts warn that the number of infections, which is already high in summer, could rise even more once more people meet indoors again. Wednesday’s “adapted legal bases” provide for a phased model to react to the expected threat. They are similar to the current division between basic protection and hotspot rules between the federal and state governments, but differ in details.
Furthermore, as a federal regulation, a mask requirement applies in air and long-distance public transport. Also across the country, not only masks but also tests will be mandatory for anyone who wants to visit hospitals, nursing homes or similar facilities or who works in outpatient care services. Persons being cared for are exempt from this, as are all those who have “freshly” recovered or “freshly” been vaccinated, meaning a period of three months. There are exceptions to the mask requirement.
As before, the federal states have the option of ordering a mask requirement in local public transport. In the future, they will also be able to issue the same condition in publicly accessible indoor areas. But there are far-reaching “mandatory exceptions” to this, namely for leisure, cultural or sporting activities, for events in these places and for gastronomic facilities. There, those visitors who have a current test, are “freshly” recovered or “freshly” vaccinated do not have to wear masks.
The federal states are also authorized to demand tests in community facilities, such as schools, kindergartens, prisons or accommodation for asylum seekers. On the other hand, a mask requirement for employees, children and young people in schools or other educational institutions is only permitted for children from the fifth school year onwards. And then only “if this is necessary to maintain regular face-to-face teaching”.
If these “winter tires” are not sufficient, the countries can demand stricter regulations, the “snow chains”. However, this presupposes that the state parliament “identifies a concrete danger to the functionality of the health system or other critical infrastructure” using defined indicators for the entire state or for certain local authorities. The hotspot rules used to be similar. In the new cases, it is possible to wear masks in all publicly accessible indoor areas without exception. The same applies to outdoor events if a minimum distance of 1.50 meters cannot be maintained there.
The “snow chains” also include mandatory hygiene concepts for events, for companies or businesses, as well as the arrangement of the minimum distance mentioned in public spaces and the determination of upper limits for people in publicly accessible indoor spaces.
The chancellery minister had to mediate
Winter tires and snow chains are not that easy to put on, which the federal government also had to learn when developing the Infection Protection Act. Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP) emphasized when presenting the results on Wednesday that they were exactly on schedule, that they had “negotiated together very collegially and also very discreetly and very result-oriented”. However, it is clear that the elaboration was not easy between Buschmann, who wanted as few restrictions as possible on fundamental rights, and Lauterbach, who placed the protection aspect in the foreground.
The fact that Chancellery Minister Wolfgang Schmidt (SPD) apparently had to be called in to reach an agreement also speaks for tough negotiations. The difficult compromise becomes visible in the confused-looking exceptions to the mask requirement in restaurants, in cinemas or in sports facilities such as fitness studios. There it will hardly be possible to determine after admission control which visitors have to wear a mask and which do not.
Lauterbach said they were “overall in a much better situation than last fall.” An omicron variant will presumably prevail in the coming autumn and thus not a combination with the more dangerous delta variant. “So the situation will be like this: we will have a lot of cases, but they are not all as deadly as the delta cases.” In addition, four additional bivalent vaccines from the manufacturers Biontech and Moderna, which contain the omicron variants BA. 1 and BA.5 and also better protected against the transmission of the infection in the future.
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