Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) has warned against loosening austerity in Germany too soon. “Our strategy has worked so far,” – Lauterbach said in an interview with BILD am SONNTAG. In his view, targeted measures and booster vaccinations have succeeded in protecting the elderly and chronically ill. “However, if we now ease restrictions too quickly, we may unnecessarily undo our own success and expose ourselves to new, dangerous infections and an extension of the epidemic wave. Thus, what we have built over weeks could be lost in a matter of days.” – he concluded.
Söder is demanding that the federal government develop a gradual plan to loosen restrictions
Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) takes a different view. According to him, there is hope that after two years with the coronavirus there will finally be a process of transition from pandemic to endemic. “If we are sure that the health care system will not be overloaded, civil liberties can no longer be curtailed to the same extent as they were in other phases of the pandemic,” Söder said in an interview with BILD am SONNTAG.
Söder is calling for the federal government to develop a gradual plan to loosen restrictions: “If the numbers of hospitalizations continue to be stable, we should take measures to lift restrictions in the fields of culture, sports and commerce. Consistent use of FFP2 masks the possibility of dropping restrictions on social contact.”
German residents are also increasingly in favor of lifting restrictions
For the first time in a long time, also a majority of the German public is in favor of easing pandemic restrictions. This is according to a representative survey of 1,002 respondents carried out by the opinion poll institute INSA on behalf of BamS. Forty-nine percent of the respondents were in favor of easing restrictions, while 44 percent had the opposite opinion. When asked about the sensibility of individual measures, 53 percent of respondents said that the continuation of the 2G rule in retail was no longer justified. In contrast, 42 percent of survey participants thought it still made sense.
66 percent of those surveyed would lift the contact restrictions for vaccinated individuals, while 27 percent favored continuing them. The 2G plus rule in restaurants is no longer considered a sensible measure to combat coronavirus by 49 percent of respondents. Slightly fewer (47 percent) believe it is reasonable.
In contrast, there is still clear support for mandatory mask wearing on buses and trains (71 percent), in retail stores (65 percent) and in schools (58 percent). A clear majority (64 percent) also believe there should still be contact restrictions for unvaccinated people.
Source: www.bild.de