When shopping, at events and in various closed rooms, the mask requirement has long since ceased to apply. It now also ends in local buses and trains. Personal responsibility for protection against corona infections is required.
Magdeburg (dpa/sa) - Passengers on local buses and trains in Saxony-Anhalt will no longer have to wear mouth and nose protection from Thursday. The cabinet agreed on Tuesday to abolish the obligation to wear masks in public transport. The current Corona Containment Ordinance, which essentially only regulates this point, will expire on Wednesday, said Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff (CDU) in Magdeburg. The country is thus relying on more personal responsibility to protect itself and others from infections. Bavaria also decided on Tuesday to abolish the mask requirement in public transport, which will apply from December 10th.
"We are concentrating on protecting the vulnerable groups in hospitals, but above all in old people's and nursing homes," said Haseloff. The Federal Infection Protection Act applies. It prescribes FFP2 masks in clinics, nursing homes, doctor's offices and other healthcare facilities. A negative test is also required when entering care facilities and hospitals. Employees must be tested several times a week.
On Monday, the health ministers of the federal states, like the transport ministers before them, had not found a uniform line for dealing with the obligation to wear masks in public transport. In Bavaria, there will only be a recommendation to wear the masks in the future.
For long-distance trains, the mask requirement is stipulated by law nationwide until April 7, 2023, but it has now been omitted on airplanes. The federal states can set mask rules for local public transport.
Prime Minister Hasleoff cited the low burden on the healthcare system from Covid 19 cases and the vaccination quotas to justify the cabinet decision. The proportion of people infected with corona in hospitals is less than three percent. Haseloff also referred to the basic immunization rate of 74 percent across all population and age groups. In the over 60-year-olds it is 90 percent.
The coalition partner SPD, which also leads the Ministry of Health, would have liked a nationwide uniform regulation at least by the end of the year, as Minister of Science Armin Willingmann explained. People do not move voluntarily in buses and trains, but are on their way to work. The goal of sticking to the mask requirement at least until the end of the year could not be achieved either in the conference of health ministers or among the transport ministers. That is regrettable, but the SPD supports the cabinet decision.
The FDP, which had vehemently called for the mask requirement to be abolished, now wants to take a further step: "Now it is up to federal politicians to follow suit and also abolish the mask requirement in long-distance transport so that there is no patchwork of regulations," demanded the health policy spokesman the FDP parliamentary group, Konstantin Pott. Infrastructure Minister Lydia Hüskens (FDP) also said that the federal government should review the rule.
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) criticized the end of the mask requirement in public transport in the first federal states. "I'm just not convinced of that," said the SPD politician on Tuesday in Berlin, referring to the pandemic situation. In the conference of health ministers with the federal states, he and the President of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Lothar Wieler, made it clear again on Monday that there were no reasons to say now that masks and the isolation of corona avoid infected people. Lauterbach referred to a more contagious virus variant that was to be expected, as well as other RS viruses, which can be particularly dangerous for children, and a wave of flu.
Saxony-Anhalt wants to stick to the isolation requirement for corona positives recommended by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). It is regulated by decree and not in the state ordinance. Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Schleswig-Holstein, Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate have lifted the isolation requirement of at least five days for those who have tested positive.
In April 2020, Saxony-Anhalt, like other federal states, obliged people to wear mouth and nose protection if they wanted to go shopping or use local public transport. Previously, there was an urgent recommendation if the safety distance of one and a half meters to unfamiliar groups could not be maintained. At that time, a "simple textile barrier" such as a scarf was enough. Medical masks should be reserved for medical personnel. The first Covid-19 cases became known in Saxony-Anhalt on March 10, 2020. It had previously been the last federal state without a confirmed infection.
In the past two years and nine months, the cabinet had issued 43 corona containment ordinances and amending ordinances. According to the RKI, 929,100 infections were registered in Saxony-Anhalt by Tuesday, and 6,053 people died from or with the virus. The incidence on Tuesday was 246.5 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants per week. Experts have been assuming that the number of unreported cases has been high for some time because fewer tests are carried out and only positive PCR tests are counted in the statistics. Saxony-Anhalt has around 2.18 million inhabitants.
