German minister, supporter of regional closures if necessary for fourth wave of COVID-19

The acting Minister of Health, Jens Spahn, today was in favor of new partial closures of public life, punctual, at the regional level and always after weighing its proportionality, in order to break the fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

When asked in a press conference about possible partial stops in public life, Spahn affirmed that “at least as an option, at the regional level” it should continue to be possible to “address broader measures” after always evaluating their proportionality.

He insisted that “each provision of a district or regional authority has to be analyzed and weighed over and over again about its proportionality.”

In Spahn’s opinion, “this toolbox, this catalog of measures” that contemplates article 28 of the law for the protection against infectious diseases, “should continue to be possible”, as proposed by the outgoing government to the parties that negotiate the future governing coalition, he added.

This article, linked to the declaration of the “epidemic situation of national scope”, which expires on November 24, allows the federal states to establish restrictions without the approval of the parliaments, for which Spahn proposes several ways so that in the ” Länder “it is still possible to apply measures.

He added that it is necessary to guarantee that the federated states can have the legal basis and the catalog of measures they need “to react flexibly” to their respective situations.

“It is about not limiting the legal possibilities, but about keeping the toolbox open,” he stressed, and recalled that this is the debate that is now taking place in Parliament.

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The foreseeable new Chancellor, current Finance Minister and Acting Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz referred yesterday in an intervention in the Bundestag to the measures included in a new bill agreed between Social Democrats, Liberals and Greens to fill the gap when this state of affairs expires. federal emergency.

In the project, he specified, powers are also given to the federated states to impose specific measures in accordance with the regional situation.

Meanwhile, the cumulative incidence of covid-19 in seven days continues to increase rapidly in Germany with a new maximum of 263.7 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) of virology updated last morning.

Health authorities reported 48,640 new infections in 24 hours, after yesterday’s record number of 50,196, and 191 deaths, while active cases stand at 395,300. (I)