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Berlin (dpa) - The German medical officers doubt that the tough state corona restrictions can be lifted on January 31.
"I am very unsure whether we can come to an end to the lockdown at the end of the month," said the chairman of the professional association of doctors of the public health service, Ute Teichert, the Funke media group.
Judging by the current number of infections, it will be difficult to get below the targeted 50 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants per week by then.
In addition, it is not enough if this mark is reached once.
"The contagion numbers must remain so low over the long term."
One thing is certain: "In any case, easing will only come gradually and not all at once."
To curb the high number of infections, stricter rules have been in place in all federal states since Monday.
This includes stricter contact restrictions: Your own household may only meet with one other person.
In counties with more than 200 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants within seven days, you should not be allowed to move more than 15 kilometers from your place of residence without good reason.
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The North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister and candidate for the CDU chairmanship, Armin Laschet, asked for understanding that politics did not know how things will continue after the lockdown until January 31.
“The question of how things will go on concerns us all.
But we don't know. "
In a pandemic, there will be no concept by the end of the year, he told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung.
But there are also hopeful signals: a good two weeks after the start of vaccinations with the first corona vaccine from Biontech and Pfizer approved in the EU, the delivery of the second approved vaccine from the US company Moderna to the federal states and their vaccination centers will begin on Tuesday .
Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) expects two million doses for Germany by the end of the quarter and 50 million doses over the course of the year.
The chairman of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV), Andreas Gassen, pointed out that a large number of vaccinations would soon be possible in medical practices.
"We will be able to use several vaccines in the foreseeable future that can also be vaccinated in medical practices," said Gassen of the "Rheinische Post".
In addition to the vaccine from Moderna, which has now arrived in Germany, this also includes that from Astrazeneca.
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The SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach also emphasized the importance of the Astrazeneca vaccine for the vaccination strategy.
He hoped for a very quick approval from the EU drug agency EMA.
"Every day counts," he told the "Rheinische Post".
"Should there be any complications in the application, I advocate considering a quick German solo effort with emergency approval."
At 70 percent, the vaccine is somewhat less effective than the vaccines from Biontech and Moderna, but it is by no means a deficiency product.
“Without Astrazeneca, we could only vaccinate a little more than around 20 million people in the first half of the year.
That is not enough in the fight against the strong second wave and a possibly much more dangerous mutation of the virus. "
The Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) complained that there was too high a refusal to vaccinate among nursing staff in old people's and nursing homes.
The German ethics council should therefore make suggestions, “whether and for which groups compulsory vaccination would be conceivable”, said the CSU head of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” (Tuesday).
"Getting vaccinated should be seen as a civic duty."
Constitutional lawyers, meanwhile, criticized the Corona Vaccination Ordinance because it did not have a sufficient constitutional legal basis in the form of a parliamentary law.
For example, constitutional lawyer Anna Leisner-Egensperger from the University of Jena wrote, according to “Welt”, in a statement for the Bundestag that there is no constitutional basis for the vaccination sequence stipulated in the ordinance.
The legal expert Andrea Kießling from the Ruhr University in Bochum also complains according to "Bild" that there is currently no regulation "that authorizes the Federal Ministry of Health to determine the sequence of vaccinations".
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In view of 25,000 Covid-19 patients in German clinics, the German Hospital Society again warned of the system being overloaded.
"With around 6000 patients in need of intensive treatment, whose care bundles significantly higher personnel resources, a high degree of stress has been reached in the system as a whole, in many clinics on site has already been exceeded in some cases," said Managing Director Georg Braun of the "Rheinische Post".
Even the normal course of illness, such as heart attacks, accidents and operations, binds intensive care capacities to a greater extent.
In order to ensure the efficiency of medical care in times of the corona pandemic, lockdown measures and encounter restrictions are definitely necessary.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210112-99-988209 / 2