Differences within German government over easing virus restrictions

Berlin (dpa) – German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Thursday repeated his call for restrictions aimed at containing the coronavirus pandemic to be lifted within weeks, once everyone in the country had received an invitation to be vaccinated.

“Once that is the case, there is no longer any justifiable reason to burden the general public with the restrictions they have faced in the past,” Maas said while on a visit to the Luxembourg border.

On Tuesday, Maas held out August as a date when restrictions could go, garnering support from across the political spectrum.

Health Minister Jens Spahn and Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht have expressed reservations. “I find naming dates at this point problematic,” Spahn told national public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk.

Lambrecht came out in favour of retaining basic protective measures. “Vaccination does not offer 100-per-cent protection against passing the virus on,” she said.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has also taken a consistently critical approach and was critical of the full stadia being seen in London during the closing games of the European football championships.

But Maas insisted: “We have to learn to live with the virus.”

The controversy broke out as the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the official disease control body, said the more infectious Delta variant had taken over as the predominant strain.

The proportion of the population fully vaccinated against the virus stood at 40.8 per cent on Thursday, up from 39.9 per cent on Wednesday, it said.

More than 961,000 shots were administered on Wednesday, and more than 47.8 million people have been vaccinated at least once, equivalent to 57.6 per cent of the population. Some 33.9 million have been fully vaccinated.

The RKI said it was likely the Delta variant was by now behind two thirds of all infections.

The health authorities have urged people to take up the offers of vaccination, pointing to evidence from other countries that full vaccination does offer substantial protection against falling seriously ill with Delta variant.

In the face of calls for restrictions to be eased, Christine Falk, president of the German immunologists association, called for masks to be worn and other rules to be observed.

“If we do nothing, this thing will go through the roof,” she told dpa, pointing to evidence from Australia that the Delta variant is transmitted much more readily than Alpha.

RKI figures show that a small proportion of those vaccinated can fall ill.

To date there have been 3,806 such cases of symptomatic infection two weeks after full vaccination.

Karl Lauterbach, health spokesman for the Social Democrats (SPD) expressed consternation at moves by Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine Westphalia, to ease restrictions.

“We are in a phase in which case rates are rising again, and progress with vaccination is slowing,” he told regional broadcaster WDR. “I was surprised by the timing of the easing measures.”

The state has decided to open discos, sports events and music and other festivals from Friday. In many cases, rules on distancing and wearing masks have been eased as well.

German states have considerable leeway in deciding their own policy, although the federal government has sought to coordinate measures.