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Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD): "I just can't imagine that we would be in a situation so late in the pandemic".
Photo: Chris Emil Janssen / imago images / Chris Emil Janssen
While many European countries are now relaxing, Germany is maintaining the measures against the corona pandemic for the time being.
A statement by Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) about a sharp increase in the number of corona deaths in the event of premature easing has caused criticism.
Ethics Council member Stephan Rixen told the ZDFheute.de portal on Wednesday that "threat scenarios in the dark could not justify restrictions on fundamental rights".
Hamburg's CDU chairman Christoph Ploß called Lauterbach a "minister of fear" in "Bild".
400, 500 dead a day
On Tuesday evening on ZDF, Lauterbach again warned against premature relaxation of the corona measures.
If Germany were to follow Israel's path with no measures, Germany would have a higher death rate.
"I just can't imagine that we would be in a situation so late in the pandemic where we have good vaccinations, where we would then have 400, 500 deaths a day," said the health minister.
The Robert Koch Institute reported 272 deaths on Wednesday and 177 on Tuesday. When asked by ZDFheute.de, the Federal Ministry of Health and the Robert Koch Institute did not want to provide any information on Wednesday on which exact data and assumptions the minister's calculations were based.
Legal expert Rixen told ZDFheute.de: »Interferences with fundamental rights must be based on comprehensible forecasts for the further development of the pandemic.
If it is not clear how the number of people who probably die because of easing of restrictions came about, then it is also not clear why restrictions on freedom should continue to be necessary."
Thorsten Lehr, head of the Covid-19 simulator at Saarland University, told ZDFheute.de that 500 corona deaths per day were possible under certain conditions: "According to our simulations, 400 to 500 deaths per day are in 7 days - Cut possible if the incidences in the peak are over 3500 to 4000.« According to the RKI, the incidence is currently around 1450, and the trend is rising.
muk/AFP
