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Health Minister Lauterbach
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For the time being, the health ministers of the federal states have not decided on a new line for changes to the corona protection requirements.
The heads of department had exchanged views, but there was no uniform procedure, for example about the obligation to wear masks on buses and trains, said a spokeswoman for the Saxony-Anhalt Ministry of Social Affairs in the evening after the consultations.
Most countries wanted to extend the mask requirement in public transport by the end of the year, some beyond.
In part, the obligation should become a recommendation.
Saxony-Anhalt is chairing the conference of health ministers this year.
During the consultation, Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) and the President of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Lothar Wieler, spoke out in favor of maintaining the isolation rules and the obligation to wear a mask, the spokeswoman said.
They expected an increasing number of new infections and would have pointed out the high mortality rate, especially among older people.
The RKI sees no reason to change the previous recommendations for isolation.
In the meantime, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Schleswig-Holstein, Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate have lifted the isolation requirement of at least five days for those who tested positive, which the RKI still recommends.
According to the information, no uniform line was decided on how to proceed with the mask requirement in buses and trains in local transport.
Even the transport ministers of the federal states had not recently found a common position on this.
Some wanted to abolish the January 1st obligation, others only after the winter.
For long-distance trains, the mask requirement is stipulated by law nationwide until April 7, 2023.
In the meantime, the professional association of paediatricians has warned of serious risks in view of the emergency in pediatric medicine due to a wave of respiratory infections.
"It is actually the case that the health of children and young people and also their lives are at risk at the moment," said association spokesman Jakob Maske on Deutschlandfunk.
Appeal: relieve pediatricians
In order to contain infections, health politicians called for people to wear a mask out of solidarity if necessary, such as the FDP health expert Andrew Ullmann.
He told the "Welt" (Monday) about the wave of infections in children: "We can do what we practiced well during the pandemic: avoid infections and break chains of infection." No government regulations are needed for this.
"Wear a mask, wash your hands, stay at home if you have an infection." In order to relieve paediatricians, one should also dispense with unnecessary requirements such as "health certificates" for children, which many daycare centers require.
SPD parliamentary group leader Dagmar Schmidt told the newspaper that basic hygiene measures also protect here.
»Everyone should now show solidarity, especially with the children.«
Many children's practices and children's wards are currently extremely overcrowded.
Experts are reporting an enormous wave of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections, which can be dangerous for babies.
dam/dpa