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FFP2 mask: It should protect better against the coronavirus than models made of fabric
Photo:
Friso Gentsch / dpa
After almost a year of pandemic, mouth and nose protection has long since gone from being a strange foreign body to being an everyday companion.
But a fabric model or a surgical mask will soon no longer be enough in the first federal state: In Bavaria, an FFP2 obligation will apply in shops and in local public transport from next week.
The special masks are designed to reduce the risk of infection.
One problem: They are comparatively expensive.
The Bavarian state government now apparently wants to respond to demands for financial help for low wage earners.
After Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder announced the upcoming mask requirement on Tuesday, the decision was criticized on social media.
The Green Member of the Bundestag Sven Lehmann, for example, demanded on Twitter that an FFP2 obligation must be followed by a free offer of masks - at least for people who otherwise could not afford them.
Virologists also criticize Bavaria's FFP2 obligation, although they emphasize the advantages of masks.
"In principle, I think the idea is good," said Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit from the Bernhard Nocht Institute in Hamburg to the dpa news agency.
However, it would have to be linked to offers: on the one hand, free access to such medical masks, and on the other hand, instructions for correct use.
"Without such offers, I take a critical view."
Gérard Krause from the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research in Braunschweig also explained that FFP2 masks offer a demonstrably better self-protection than the simple surgical mouth and nose covering, but also made it clear: “A sufficient and fair availability for everyone seems to me an essential condition for This measure."
"Poor people are completely excluded from public life"
Left chairwoman Katja Kipping
How inadequate access is currently available can be seen if you compare the prices of the masks with the Hartz IV standard requirement, for example.
This includes EUR 17.02 per month for health care expenses.
This includes everything from toothpaste to nonprescription drugs and toiletries.
FFP2 masks cost around five to seven euros each in pharmacies, you can get them for two euros in drugstores, and sometimes even less on the Internet.
Nevertheless: The masks, like other models, cannot be washed and, according to virologists, should be changed after eight hours of wearing at the latest.
For example, those who regularly use public transport have to get many of the relatively expensive masks.
That quickly exceeds the budget - not only from Hartz IV recipients.
The left chairwoman Katja Kipping therefore sees the new Bavarian regulation as a heavy burden for poor people.
"An FFP2 obligation to provide without a mask means in practice: Poor people are completely excluded from public life," she told the AFP news agency on Wednesday.
The Bavarian state chairman of the social association VdK, Ulrike Mascher, calls on Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) "fast and unbureaucratic solutions for the procurement of such masks for people with low incomes".
Munich's health officer Beatrix Zurek also speaks out in favor of financial support.
"I find it difficult to make such decisions without taking social aspects into account," Zurek said in an interview with the BR.
Not only Hartz IV recipients are affected.
Due to the corona-related short-time work, many people currently have little money available.
The urgency of such demands could increase even further in the coming days: shortly after Söder's announcement on Tuesday, people reported on Twitter of long queues in front of Munich pharmacies.
In some online shops, the masks were promptly reported to be more expensive or temporarily sold out.
You can still find cheap FFP2 masks in online shops, but they often do not have the same quality standard as those from pharmacies, said virologist Alexander Kekulé of the dpa: "Cheap masks often do not close properly on the nose." Read here what else you should pay attention to).
The criticism apparently arrived: on Wednesday afternoon, the dpa news agency reported that the Bavarian state government was planning to provide two million masks to those in need free of charge.
With almost 300,000 Hartz IV recipients in Bavaria alone, this should not be enough in the long term, but it would at least be a start.
Help has also been announced from elsewhere: On the initiative of the federal government, the health insurance companies have started to send vouchers for FFP2 masks to particularly vulnerable people, as the patient representative of the SPD parliamentary group, Martina Stamm-Fibich, announced on Wednesday afternoon.
34.1 million citizens should receive mail in the coming days.
The vouchers can be exchanged for twelve FFP2 masks.
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