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Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD): "That's a plane crash every day"
Photo: Christoph Soeder / dpa
Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach recommends wearing masks indoors despite the lifting of most corona restrictions.
He will do this, for example, when shopping, "I advise every citizen to do the same," said the SPD politician on Deutschlandfunk.
The risk of becoming infected was “rarely higher than now”.
From a medical and epidemiological point of view, he would have thought that masks and other protective rules were right, but legally it was no longer possible throughout Germany.
According to the amended Infection Protection Act, most state requirements will no longer apply in large parts of Germany on Sunday.
In almost all federal states, only a few general requirements for masks, for example in practices, nursing homes, clinics, buses and trains, as well as for tests in schools, for example, can be ordered.
Further requirements only apply in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Hamburg.
For the time being, both countries are the only ones to use the so-called hotspot rule.
It allows additional specifications if the state parliament determines that the hospitals are threatened with a critical situation in the region.
Regardless of state rules, companies, shops and other facilities can continue to maintain specifications such as mask requirements.
Wüst demands "voluntary" mask wearing
Even in the most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where no hotspots have been named, Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) spoke out in favor of further protective measures.
He personally appealed to everyone "at least for the time being to continue to voluntarily wear a mask indoors in order to protect yourself and others effectively," Wüst told the "Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger".
Lauterbach expects the number of new corona infections to continue to fall, especially after Easter.
Nevertheless, there are 200 to 300 people who die every day in connection with Corona.
'This is not acceptable.
That's one plane crash every day,' said the minister.
rai/dpa