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CDU boss Armin Laschet met criticism from the SPD and the Greens with skeptical statements about the importance of corona incidence figures.
"Anyone who, like Laschet, speaks of 'invented limits' is destroying trust in the Corona measures," wrote SPD parliamentary group vice Katja Mast on Twitter on Tuesday.
With his statements, the NRW Prime Minister had moved a clear distance from the course of Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU).
Laschet said on Monday on the sidelines of an event organized by the Baden-Württemberg CDU Economic Council: “You cannot always invent new limit values to prevent life from happening again.” With this, Laschet turned against Merkel and the Prime Ministers of the Countries made the decision last week to use the value of 35 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants in seven days instead of the incidence value of 50 as the benchmark for further easing of corona protective measures.
At the event, Laschet also accused the advocates of a tough course in the fight against the corona pandemic, to which Merkel and CSU boss Markus Söder are counted, populism.
"It is popular to forbid everything, be strict, treat the citizens like underage children," said the CDU chairman.
He warned against measuring people's lives only in terms of incidence values.
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Mast wrote that, of course, it is right to weigh up corona measures.
“Agreeing on everything and withdrawing it afterwards speaks of a weak character,” but she pointed out that Laschet was involved in the decision for the benchmark of 35 even at the top-level talks between the federal states and the federal states.
"Curious that he takes decisions to doubt them on Monday"
The North Rhine-Westphalian SPD state politician Sarah Philipp called it on Twitter "at least curious" that Laschet first took decisions at a conference, then defended them in the state parliament, only to question them on Monday.
"The limit value of 35 was not 'invented", but derived from the higher R value of the mutation B117 "of the coronavirus," said the SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach.
In addition, the lockdown is not "populist", but rather unpopular.
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Criticism also came from the Greens.
"The virus prevents normal life from occurring again, not 'invented' incidence values," emphasized the Deputy Greens chairman Ricarda Lang.
"It is irresponsible that Armin Laschet either did not understand it or deliberately portrayed it differently," she accused the CDU boss.
Laschet had spoken out strongly against patronizing the citizens in the fight against the corona pandemic.
"I think the popular attitude is still to forbid everything, be strict, treat citizens like underage children," he said on Monday evening at the digital New Year's reception of the Baden-Württemberg state association of the CDU economic council.
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But that won't last forever, said Laschet.
The virus and its mutations have to be taken seriously.
But you have to come back to a balancing position.
Children who do not go to school or daycare for months may suffer lifelong damage.
The state heads of government and Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) had recently agreed to extend the lockdown until March 7th.
Should the so-called seven-day incidence - i.e. new infections per 100,000 inhabitants per week - steadily fall below 35, the restrictions should be gradually relaxed by the federal states - initially for retailers, museums and galleries as well as companies with body-related services.