The order of the health department is feared: Anyone who has had contact with someone infected with corona must be quarantined at home for up to fourteen days.

But there is one important exception: if you have full vaccination protection against the Sars-CoV-2 virus, the quarantine obligation does not apply in most cases.

After all, the risk that he or she will become infected, become ill and pass the pathogen on to others is significantly lower than with people who have not been vaccinated.

Vaccinated contact persons can therefore usually go about their everyday life.

This is not only good for them and their employers, but also for the health ministers of the federal states.

Because they do not have to pay any compensation for the loss of earnings.

Vaccinate for freedom

Julia Löhr

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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According to the Infection Protection Act: Anyone who cannot work because of a quarantine order and therefore suffers a loss of earnings is entitled to state compensation. In practice, this works in such a way that the companies continue to pay the wages and have this reimbursed by the state. The federal states have already spent around 450 million euros on this since the beginning of the pandemic, according to a survey by the Evangelical Press Service among the responsible ministries of the federal states. North Rhine-Westphalia alone paid around 120 million euros in compensation. But in some federal states this practice should soon be over. The reason is a sentence that is also in Section 56 of the Infection Protection Act: "Compensation according to Sentences 1 and 2 is not given to those who claim a vaccination (...),which is required by law or was publicly recommended in the area of ​​the habitual residence of the person concerned (...), a prohibition in the exercise of his previous activity or isolation could have avoided. "

Unvaccinated employees are responsible for their loss of earnings: In Baden-Württemberg this principle will apply from September 15th. Then the country does not want to pay any more compensation for unvaccinated people in the quarantine case. Rhineland-Palatinate plans to follow suit on October 1st. From Hessen it is said that unvaccinated people would have to expect that applications for compensation for quarantine loss of earnings would be rejected in the future. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is also considering not paying the compensation after a transitional period - two months were recently discussed. For unvaccinated workers, it could become expensive sooner or later if they have to bridge two weeks without wages themselves. At the same time, their bosses would learn, at least indirectly, through the quarantine order,that he or she was apparently not vaccinated.

Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn (CDU) believes the federal states are doing the right thing.

"I can understand the argument very well," he said on Wednesday in Berlin during a press conference with the head of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) Lothar Wieler.

The quarantine compensation is similar to the free citizen tests: Ultimately, the costs are currently borne by the taxpayers.

"I don't see why others should pay for it in the long run if someone doesn't opt ​​for the free vaccination even though they could," said Spahn, who once again strongly promoted the corona vaccination.

"We have the means in hand to vaccinate ourselves back to freedom," said Spahn.

The pressure on the unvaccinated is increasing

The head of the trading company Kik, Patrick Zahn, who sat on the podium, reported that there was a lot of uncertainty among younger women in his workforce. Especially in connection with pregnancy, there are still "big question marks" about the corona vaccination. More education is important at this point. According to the figures from the Federal Ministry of Health, 61.7 percent of Germans have so far been fully vaccinated against the corona virus. According to this, 66 percent received at least one vaccine dose. This is not enough to make it through autumn and winter, said Spahn. "The number of those who have not been vaccinated is simply still too large." And RKI boss Lothar Wieler warned: "Those who do not get vaccinated will be infected with Sars-CoV-2."

The pressure on unvaccinated people is increasing. In Hamburg, some restaurants and clubs only allow those who have recovered or have been vaccinated to enter, in order to be subject to less strict protective regulations. This is being discussed in other federal states. Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) would prefer to only allow travel by train with a negative test - soon to be paid for - or proof of immunity. The signals from the federal states not to replace the unvaccinated for loss of earnings in the quarantine case should, in addition to cost savings, pursue the aim of persuading as many vaccine skeptics as possible to have the two injections given.

The case is different if parents cannot work because their children have to be in quarantine. After all, there is still no vaccination recommendation for children, and in most federal states, at least those directly next to infected children in school classes have to be in quarantine. As long as an “epidemic situation of national scope” applies in Germany - which the Bundestag recently extended - employees are entitled to compensation under the Infection Protection Act even if they have to look after their quarantined child.