Germany Announces New Coronavirus Measures For Fall And Winter, Expecting Cases To Rise

The German government on Wednesday said basic coronavirus requirements would remain in place during the coming fall and winter, when experts expect COVID-19 cases to rise again as people spend more time indoors.

Face masks and presenting proof of a negative coronavirus test will be mandatory from October until early April at hospitals, nursing homes and similar institutions with vulnerable people.

Passengers on airplanes and making long-distance trips by train and bus also will have to wear masks during that period, as they do now.

However, Germany’s 16 states have the authority to adopt their own rules depending on how severely the virus affects their areas. State governments could decide to require masks on local public transportation, in schools for students in fifth grade and up, and at public indoor events.

Community facilities such as schools, prisons or asylum-seeker shelters may implement regular testing again if COVID-19 case numbers rise, Germany’s health and justice ministers said in a joint statement.

The government also plans a fall vaccination campaign.

“Germany should be better prepared for the next coronavirus winter than in previous years,” Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said.

Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said a special effort would be made to keep schools open, while states will “only be able to impose a mask requirement at schools if this is necessary in order to be able to continue to provide in-person teaching.”

“Children have a right to school education and a school day that is as carefree as possible. School closures must therefore not be allowed,” Buschmann said.

The new regulations still need to go to Cabinet and parliament for approval but are expected to pass.

Germany Wipes Its List Of COVID ‘High-Risk Areas’ Clean

BERLIN (AP) — Germany is removing all countries currently on its list of “high-risk areas” as part of a rethink of its coronavirus travel rules that took effect on March 3rd.

The country’s disease control center, the Robert Koch Institute, said that from now on Germany’s list will only include places where high infection rates are linked to variants of COVID-19 that are more virulent than the currently dominant omicron variant, which in many cases leads to relatively mild illness.

That change will result in the current list of “high-risk areas,” which contains dozens of countries and territories, being wiped clean from Thursday on. Health Ministry spokesman Andreas Deffner said Wednesday, however, that Germany will still require people to show proof of vaccination, recent recovery or a negative test to enter the country.

People arriving from “high-risk areas” who either haven’t recovered recently or been fully vaccinated have to self-isolate for 10 days, which can be cut to five with a negative test. Everyone arriving from those areas has to register online before arrival.

For countries that do end up on the list, quarantine requirements will be relaxed for under-12s — who will be able to avoid self-isolating with a negative test — and dropped for children under 6.

Germany’s coronavirus infection rate is drifting downward slowly after a wave of infections with omicron peaked last month. Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the country’s 16 state governors agreed in mid-February on a three-step plan to end most restrictions by March 20.

Germany Proposing To Ban The Unvaccinated From Nearly Everywhere

Germany’s health ministry is preparing sweeping measures next month that could exclude unvaccinated people from many areas of public life if Covid-19 infection rates continue to rise.

What is being proposed?

The measures, which would be among the strictest in Europe, would ensure that only those who have been vaccinated against the virus, have recovered from an infection, or those who can demonstrate a negative test result would be able to access many facilities.

The Health Ministry indicated that the government was considering the idea of imposing restrictions that they called the “2G rule,” on unvaccinated people in the event that infections and hospitalizations continue to rise. This would only allow vaccinated or recovered people to attend certain facilities while unvaccinated people would be excluded.

This could ban the unvaccinated from going to restaurants, gyms or hairdressers,, indoor sports and large outdoor events or participated in other activities.

“Tests are therefore becoming a prerequisite, for example, for access to hospitals, old people’s and nursing homes, indoor catering, events and celebrations, but also for visits to the hairdresser or the cosmetic studio. The same applies to indoor sports or accommodation, for example in hotels and guest houses,” the government said on Tuesday.

“I say to all those of you who are still unsure: A vaccination doesn’t just protect you, it protects the people you care about, the people who mean a lot to you, your loved ones,” Merkel said.

Source: https://www.politicsvideochannel.com/