The pandemic has fundamentally changed Lauterbach's life. Corona helped him into office, says the Federal Minister of Health. However, he now has to make compromises in his private life. With regard to the spread of the virus, he dares an unusually optimistic forecast.
Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach is confident about the development of the pandemic in the coming months: "Hopefully next winter will be the last major battle with the corona virus," said the politician to the "Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin" on Friday. The virus had "mutated into a dead end," said the minister. However, Lauterbach remains true to his cautious line, he does not want to give the all-clear: "There is no reason for carelessness. It is too early for further easing."
Lauterbach acknowledged in the interview that the pandemic played a role in his rise to the ministerial post. "Corona helped me get this job, you have to say that."
His private life suffered under the office. "I have the highest security level, I'm out and about with many security officers at the weekend," said Lauterbach. "When my daughter or friends are there, I sometimes have to ask the security people to give us some privacy." That is also the reason why he is trying harder not to let private things get into the public eye: "I definitely have to be more careful not to endanger people who are close to me."
The current data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) also speak against the beginning of a corona winter wave. In its Covid 19 report in the evening, the RKI writes of an eight percent increase in the nationwide seven-day incidence in the past week compared to the previous week. However, it cannot yet be conclusively confirmed whether this is a trend. Recently, the values have been at a similar level for a long time.
The RKI looks at several factors in the report, since the incidence alone only partially reflects what is happening. With regard to the number of hospital treatments for Covid-19, the authors speak of a stabilization in the number of cases in a weekly comparison; however, the number of intensive care patients with evidence of corona increased by ten percent to almost 1,000.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz is also looking forward to the development of the pandemic over the next few months with confidence. "It's a much more relaxed situation than before," said Scholz after the federal-state conference in Berlin that evening. The corona pandemic is still there. There are also major problems with other respiratory diseases.
Unlike in previous years, there is now a "very extensively vaccinated population" in Germany, said the Chancellor. Therefore, the country could go into this winter "very well". This time, the top group of federal and state governments did not make any concrete decisions on pandemic policy.
