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Quick test set: why does delivery take so long?
Photo: Martin Wagner / imago images / Martin Wagner
According to the latest agreement between the federal and state governments, every citizen should be able to receive a free Corona rapid test every week from Monday - actually.
Because this will probably not be the case everywhere at the start.
The coalition partners SPD and CSU blame Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn for this and attack the CDU politician.
The Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate Malu Dreyer told the newspapers of the Funke media group: “In mid-February, Health Minister Jens Spahn promised free rapid tests for everyone.
And he claimed that he had contractually secured 500 million tests for Germany.
That was a great promise and aroused very high expectations that he could not keep. «Your country has now procured tests itself, said Dreyer, who wants to win the state elections on Sunday in a week.
“Contractually secured”, however, only meant the manufacturer's promise to be able to serve orders.
Spahn had repeatedly emphasized that sufficient tests were available.
Chancellery Minister Helge Braun explained in the Funke newspapers that the federal government paid for the tests.
But: »It was never agreed that the federal government would order rapid tests for the federal states.
That is the task of the countries themselves. "
Saxony's Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) defended the federal government.
"The accusation against the federal government is cheap," he told the Funke newspapers.
"Rapid tests are produced and available in abundance."
"You can't shift the responsibility for testing onto the countries."
CSU General Secretary Markus Blume
However, the CSU continues to be dissatisfied.
Your general secretary Markus Blume followed up with criticism of Spahn and told "Bild am Sonntag": "You cannot shift the responsibility for testing onto the countries and declare yourself to be completely incompetent."
Free rapid tests by trained staff should be available from Monday in pharmacies, test centers and also from general practitioners.
But Spahn has already pointed out that this will probably not be the case in all countries.
The chairman of the General Practitioner Association, Ulrich Weigeldt, told the “Bild am Sonntag”: “We don't even begin to know when and to what extent these rapid tests should be ordered by whom and to whom.” And: “What we cannot offer is an open day for everyone who wants to be tested spontaneously. "
"Selling self-tests"?
On Saturday there were lay self-tests for use at home in the first supermarkets for the first time, in many places the sets were immediately sold out.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig (SPD) also accused the federal government of failure.
Your country, which is home to around 1.6 million people, has said they have ordered two million of these self-tests.
"I do not want to hide at this point that I am very angry that the federal government allows Aldi and Co. to sell self-tests and we do not get the self-tests delivered until mid-March," she said on Saturday in Schwerin.
Tests, together with vaccinations, are the means by which the spread of mutated coronaviruses and thus a third wave is prevented and ultimately the pandemic is to be contained.
Baden-Württemberg's Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann suggested increasing the vaccination rate by relaxing the vaccination sequence.
"We can in no way allow ourselves to leave vaccination doses," said the Green politician of the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung".
»I am therefore in favor of vaccinating in the doctor's offices as soon as possible in addition to the vaccination centers and that the fixed vaccination schedule there is really only a recommendation, because doctors are used to prioritizing, and they should do so on their own responsibility do."
The immunologist Michael Meyer-Hermann recommended prioritizing the vaccination groups according to the number of contacts.
To vaccinate those with many contacts first "would have a much greater effect" than proceeding according to age, the expert from the Braunschweig Helmholtz Center for Infection Research told the "Tagesspiegel".
By vaccinating the older population first, the death rate had been significantly reduced - but this was the group with the fewest contacts and had no effect on the epidemic.
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mxw / dpa