"Does not find approval": Lauterbach angry about Söder's Corona plans

Created: 11/11/2022 4:53 p.m

By: Franziska Schwarz

Karl Lauterbach (archive image) © Stefan Boness/Ipon/Imago

Health Minister Karl Lauterbach criticizes the countries’ compulsory isolation plans – the virologist Klaus Stöhr, on the other hand, sees it differently.

Berlin – Stopping the corona isolation obligation, as Bavaria is planning, comes “at the wrong time” for Karl Lauterbach.

"The federal government does not approve of this," said the SPD health minister on Friday (November 11) in Berlin.

Lauterbach spoke of a mistake and warned of a “patchwork” with different isolation rules in the federal states.

Bavaria's Prime Minister and CSU boss Markus Söder initially brought an end to the obligation to isolate if there were no symptoms.

The current rule in Bavaria goes further.

The general five-day isolation requirement after a positive test is to be lifted from November 16th.

There is no longer any talk of freedom from symptoms.

However, those who test positive should have to wear a mask outside their own home.

End of the corona isolation obligation: Klaus Stöhr has a different opinion than Karl Lauterbach

"There is also no medical reason to forgo the obligation to isolate now," said Lauterbach.

There are about 1000 deaths from Covid per week, one is facing a "probably severe winter wave" and is "on the eve of a more contagious variant".

It is therefore not really responsible to take away the obligation to isolate.

He added that the workplace must remain safe and that people who are infected must be prevented from being pushed to work.

The virologist and ex-WHO director Klaus Stöhr, in turn, tweeted on the subject that the obligation to isolate was “neither necessary, effective nor appropriate”.

It would also be proportionate for people who have tested positive for Corona but have no symptoms to be allowed to go to work or school, "since Covid-19 now has a comparable burden of disease and Sars-CoV-2 a spread that is comparable with that of other respiratory diseases and the immunity situation in the population will soon be complete," he tweeted in a longer thread:

The Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Health had previously announced that four federal states had agreed to lift the isolation requirement.

These are Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hesse and Schleswig-Holstein.

In these countries, new regulations should come into force "soon", the details are currently being worked out.