In the corona pandemic, there is growing concern about thinned care departments and empty workbenches. The spread of the Omikron variant is taking on threatening proportions, which is why Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) wants to talk to the Prime Minister about shortened quarantine rules this Friday. Employers are now getting involved in the debate and are bringing an instrument into play that promises even greater flexibility: the "work quarantine". It not only allows contact persons to return to work earlier, but also asymptomatic employees who have been found to be infected with the coronavirus. "The work quarantine has already proven itself in the first and second wave of the pandemic," emphasized the Federal Association of Employers' Associations (BDA) in a statement.This possibility should continue to exist in the Omikron wave in order to secure the infrastructure.

Corinna Budras

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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Dietrich Creutzburg

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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Work quarantine means that the responsible health authorities allow the occupational activity despite an infection or contact with an infected person under strict hygienic conditions.

In concrete terms, this means that the employees concerned are generally only allowed to leave their home for work.

Public transport or shops are still taboo.

Outrage on Twitter

The health authorities have been very reluctant to use this option so far, explains labor lawyer Steffen Scheuer from the law firm Baker McKenzie. So far, this has happened particularly in the area of ​​critical infrastructure when the ability to work there was severely impaired due to the infection. "It is not surprising that the instrument of work quarantine is increasingly being discussed against the background of the expected Omikron wave," says the lawyer. He does not expect the health authorities to use it outside of the critical infrastructure.

However, this term is more generous than is commonly thought. Not only medical areas, police and fire brigade as well as the water and energy industry are included. In the past, the responsible authorities have also allowed such exceptions in farms at harvest time or in the meat processing industry, when hundreds of workers were sick at the same time. At that time, they were allowed to continue working in order to keep the company running. Animal welfare was used as an argument, after all, the farmers depend on their animals that are ready for slaughter being removed at the scheduled times in order to make room for new ones. If the supply chain falters, this could have serious consequences.

The idea that even people suffering from Corona can continue to work in the company under strict conditions may seem strange in view of the heated debates about the dangers of infection.

In any case, outrage is currently spreading on the short message platform Twitter.

Under the catchphrase #No to work quarantine, contributions from nurses who, as a precaution, regardless of specific cases, have already announced that they want to oppose such an order.

“I work with people with severe physical disabilities and I am guaranteed not to work infected there!” Confesses one user.

Almost 60 million fully vaccinated

On the other hand, there are more and more mild courses of the disease - also thanks to the fact that almost 60 million people in Germany are now fully vaccinated and as many as 34 million have received an additional booster vaccination. More and more often, corona disease can not only lead to a severe course and thus to hospitalization, but conversely, it can also ban thousands of people without symptoms to their own four walls for 14 days - without the possibility of leaving them.

According to the current guidelines of the Robert Koch Institute, people infected with corona have to go into self-isolation for 14 days. With the currently prevailing delta variant, vaccinated people can shorten this compulsory break to a maximum of five days if they show a negative PCR test.

This exception does not yet apply to the new Omikron variant;

on Friday it will be decided whether the exception to the 14-day rule should also apply in these cases.

So far, the easing has been planned primarily for critical infrastructure, but the German economy hopes that the circle will not be drawn too small.

She also advocates shorter quarantine times for staff at supermarket checkouts, food suppliers and other branches of the economy.

The President of the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DIHK), Peter Adrian, demanded not only the health system, energy and water supply.