Coronavirus and workplace: "Traffic light" wants 3G rule with daily tests for unvaccinated people

In the fight against the rising corona numbers, the traffic light parties want to enforce a 3G obligation in the workplace with daily tests for unvaccinated people.

Berlin - In addition, regular tests are also planned for vaccinated employees in old people's and nursing homes, as the health experts from the SPD, Greens and FDP explained on Tuesday in Berlin.

Meanwhile, new demands for a federal-state meeting on the corona situation have been made.

According to the planned new regulation, employees will have to be tested daily in the workplace if they have not been vaccinated or have not recovered.

In addition, a right to information is planned, with which the employer should also be given the opportunity to save data about the vaccination status for "a certain time", said the SPD health expert Sabine Dittmar.

So far, employees are only obliged to provide information to their employer in certain areas - for example in old people's and nursing homes, schools and daycare centers or hospitals.

The unions are reluctant to have a general obligation to provide information.

"Regardless of the vaccination status, employers must take the necessary measures in companies to ensure effective protection of employees," explained DGB boss Reiner Hoffmann.

For employees in old people's and nursing homes, one or two so-called PCR pool tests are also being discussed for vaccinated employees every week, as Dittmar said.

The samples are taken from several people at the same time and evaluated together.

In addition, the "traffic light" wants to introduce free citizen tests for everyone.

The German Foundation for Patient Protection demanded daily tests of the employees in the homes.

"It is important to check the staff before each start of work in both inpatient and outpatient care," said Foundation Board Member Eugen Brysch of the AFP news agency.

The social association VdK also called for daily tests.

This is the only way to "break the swelling wave of corona infections in homes," said his president Verena Bentele to the newspapers of the Funke media group.

Most of the new regulations are to be incorporated into the draft law presented by the traffic light parties on Monday for the period after the epidemic of national importance has expired.

The law, which is to be discussed in the Bundestag for the first time on Thursday, provides in particular for the continuation of the mask requirement and distance requirements - especially in closed rooms.

On November 18, the parliament is to pass the new regulation, the day after the Federal Council could finally discuss it at a special session.

It is "very important that the legislative process returns to parliament," said FDP health expert Christine Aschenberg-Dugnus.

The end of the epidemic emergency does not mean the end of the pandemic.

According to the Green MP Maria Klein-Schmeink, further regulation could be necessary.

It may still have to be readjusted, she said.

Chancellery chief Helge Braun (CDU) said with a view to the much demanded federal-state meeting in the ARD "Morgenmagazin": "We have to get 20 million booster vaccinations by Christmas."

That only happens "if we coordinate well between the federal government and the federal states".

Saxony-Anhalt's Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff (CDU) spoke out in favor of a Prime Minister's conference by Wednesday next week at the latest.

This is "urgently required," he said in Magdeburg.

The Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) also called for a new federal-state meeting in Munich.

In contrast, the Hamburg Senate currently considers such advice to be unnecessary.

"The federal states have all the tools they need to act," said Senate spokesman Marcel Schweitzer.

jp / pw