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Hanover (dpa / lni) - The obligation issued in Bavaria to wear FFP2 masks in local public transport and in retail is met with skepticism in Lower Saxony.

"I assume that Lower Saxony would only consider an obligation to wear an FFP2 mask if it is really ensured that all people in Lower Saxony have free access to such a mask," said government spokeswoman Anke Pörksen on Tuesday in Hanover.

"Otherwise we would exclude parts of the population from the absolutely vital visit to a supermarket or a bakery to buy food or to use public transport to go to the doctor or a pharmacy or wherever."

The cabinet in Munich decided on Tuesday that the FFP2 mask requirement, which should apply from next Monday, was decided.

While simple everyday masks are there to protect others in the Corona crisis, FFP2 masks also protect the wearer themselves.

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As the vice-head of the Corona crisis team of the Lower Saxony state government, Claudia Schröder, said, wearing such masks makes sense where people come into close physical contact, for example in care and in the medical sector.

In the shopping market or in local transport, this hardly creates additional protection, since other people are already wearing a mask.

Comments by the Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) on a possible vaccination requirement for employees in old people's and nursing homes were also rejected by the Lower Saxony state government.

"The discussion about compulsory vaccination for certain professional groups does not bring us a step further, it is even harmful," said Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD).

"Many people are ready to be vaccinated, more and more in the old people's and nursing homes."

The more people who received the vaccine without significant side effects and were thus protected against corona infection, the greater the willingness to vaccinate others, argued Weil.

"To argue about compulsory vaccination now, under these conditions, arouses more distrust than more willingness to vaccinate."

That is exactly what it must be about now.