Did Health Minister Jens Spahn behave "unworthy" and "inhuman" because he allegedly divided people into two classes, namely those who are entitled to quality-tested masks and those for which "absolutely unsuitable masks are good enough" , namely homeless and people with disabilities?
The allegations of the SPD chairmen Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans, which were based on a report in the magazine Der Spiegel, sounded so outrageous that they even seemed to justify the call for the resignation of the Union's most important minister.
Markus Wehner
Political correspondent in Berlin.
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The allegations were apparently launched from the Federal Ministry of Labor (BMAS) of the Social Democratic Minister Hubertus Heil.
The Union has now responded indignantly to the allegations with harsh words such as “lie” and “foul play” and demand an apology.
This is more than usual in political disputes among coalition partners.
Meanwhile, the opposition has taken a liking to the matter.
On Wednesday there was a current hour on the mask dispute in the Bundestag at the request of the left-wing parliamentary group.
But what is actually behind the dispute over protective masks, which the SPD initially only described as “not certified”, then as “presumably inferior” and finally as “absolutely unsuitable”? The crucial difference lies in the terms "infection protection" and "occupational safety".
When there was a major emergency in the procurement of masks last year and masks certified according to EU standards were hardly available, the EU Commission recommended that member states import masks from outside the European Union.
In most cases they came from China, which at the time produced around eighty percent of the protective masks worldwide.
The Federal Institute for Drugs, TÜV Nord and the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) developed a simplified test procedure for the imported masks, which was standardized under the name Corona Pandemic Infection Protection Mask (CPI).
Two masks with simplified test standards
According to a fact sheet from the Ministry of Health, which was sent out on Sunday, all CPI masks fulfilled "an effective protection against infection". There are also corona pandemic protective masks (CPA), which are also subject to a simplified test standard. When it comes to infection protection, both types are considered equally good. For the CPI masks, however, two things were left out of the test: Firstly, this applies to the temperature conditioning, in which the material is heated to seventy degrees for 24 hours and then cooled to minus thirty degrees for another 24 hours. On the other hand, part of the usage simulation was left out: It was not about fit, tight fit, resilience of the straps or similar basic properties, but about the "extended application test",However, according to the BMG, it is not relevant for protection against infection against the coronavirus.