Enlarge image
Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn
Photo: HENNING SCHACHT / POOL / EPA
The health ministers of the federal states have agreed with Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) on a joint approach to end the continued payment of wages for unvaccinated people.
From November 1, employees in Germany can no longer receive state support if they have to be in quarantine due to suspected corona and are not vaccinated.
However, the right to continued payment of wages in the event of illness remains.
Several countries had already issued their own rules.
In Baden-Württemberg, such a rule has been in place since mid-September.
In a draft resolution, the Federal Ministry of Health had previously recommended October 11 as the start date for the nationwide regulation.
In the negotiations, however, the date was postponed.
Bremen and Thuringia abstained from voting.
Until November 1, everyone who was vaccinated during the vaccination campaign had the chance of full vaccination protection, said Spahn in a subsequent press conference.
He emphasized that it was a question of fairness, not pressure. Choosing not to be vaccinated carries a financial responsibility.
In fact, it is already stipulated in the Infection Protection Act that the right to compensation in the case of quarantine is forfeited if it could have been avoided by vaccination. This part of Paragraph 56 has just not yet been implemented. "The nationwide law clearly stipulates: Anyone who deliberately does not get vaccinated, although there are no medical obstacles to it and could have avoided quarantine through the vaccination, has no claim to compensation for loss of earnings in the event of quarantine," Bavaria's Minister of Health Klaus Holetschek already had said before the talks.
Various health politicians and associations had expressed concerns about the regulation - including SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach, who fears that unvaccinated people could refuse tests or quarantine if they threatened financial losses.
Green politician Janosch Dahmen made a similar statement.
The concept only works safely "if the 3G rule is binding everywhere at the same time in the workplace," he told the "Rheinische Post".
Otherwise, he feared a covert pandemic.
mfh
