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Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder in Munich
Photo: Sven Hoppe / dpa
The fourth wave of corona is also bringing intensive care units to their limit in Bavaria - now Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) has renewed his appeal to get vaccinated.
Even if someone thinks they can cope with a corona disease, they should get vaccinated, said Söder in Munich - if not for self-protection, then so as not to infect others.
"There is no compulsory vaccination, but there should be a vaccination ethic," said the CSU chief.
Many people would no longer take the situation seriously.
Söder therefore fears a "very, very serious situation".
The hospitals are "full and at the maximum at the limit."
According to doctors, 90 percent of those infected with corona in the intensive care units in Bavaria are not vaccinated.
The small remainder are those who have been vaccinated with breakthroughs, especially older people and people with previous illnesses.
Vaccinations against Corona protect to a large extent against severe disease, but cannot prevent you from being infected with the virus - especially with the more aggressive Delta variant.
Pressure on the Bund-Länder-Round
For better protection against breakthroughs in the vaccination, Söder hopes for as many booster vaccinations as possible after five months. You can see from the experience with the booster vaccinations in Israel, "that boosters have brought relief," said Söder. So far, the booster is usually only considered six months after the second vaccination and is only recommended for people over 70 years of age. The Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) considers booster vaccinations to make sense for everyone in the medium term, and the federal and state health ministers are in favor of it anyway.
On Thursday next week, the federal and state governments want to advise on steps to be taken in the corona pandemic.
Söder calls for a nationwide decision on partial compulsory vaccination, for example for health care workers.
He also spoke out in favor of nationwide 2G rules - i.e. access to events or in restaurants only for vaccinated and convalescent people, no longer for those who tested negative.
Larger events, including carnival, should also be discussed.
He could not currently imagine "swinging without a mask".
"Damping, but not breaking"
The traffic light parties criticized Söder for their slow action: "You can't drive through the winter with a set of summer tires," Söder told Olaf Scholz.
The SPD candidate for chancellor had previously said in the Bundestag that they were ready to "get through the winter safely."
If free rapid tests are now introduced again, that is good, but not enough.
With a view to the fourth wave, the measures presented by the traffic light coalition are "dampening, but not breaking," said Söder.
In Bavaria, the nationwide disaster has been in effect again since Thursday.
Among other things, this enables the Ministry of the Interior to coordinate the work of the authorities in providing medical care across the country.
The state government first declared the disaster shortly after the pandemic began in March 2020.
In Bavaria, both the number of infections and deaths are well above average.
With an incidence of around 250 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, the Free State is behind Saxony and Thuringia in a national comparison.
The vaccination rate in Bavaria is also comparatively low.
According to the federal dashboard, 65.2 percent of citizens were fully vaccinated on Wednesday.
Bremen, Hamburg and North Rhine-Westphalia, on the other hand, have vaccination rates of over 70 percent.
The RKI reported 71 new corona deaths in Bavaria on Thursday morning - that is almost a third of the 234 deaths reported nationwide.
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