In Baden-Württemberg, going to a restaurant or concert can be the privilege of vaccinated people or citizens who have already been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus in just a few weeks.

The latest Corona ordinance, which is to be passed by the green-black cabinet in circulation at the weekend, provides for unvaccinated people to no longer be allowed access to restaurants or events as soon as more than 390 patients need intensive medical treatment in the clinics.

Rudiger Soldt

Political correspondent in Baden-Württemberg.

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The Bavarian state government does not want to begin with the restrictions for non-vaccinated citizens until 600 ventilation beds are occupied. In both federal states, intensive care physicians had pleaded for a lower intervention threshold. The Baden-Württemberg regulation should also apply if the incidence of hospitalization is higher than twelve. Even when 250 intensive care beds are occupied, non-vaccinated citizens will in future need a PCR test in order to gain access to certain public events.

Around 170 patients are currently receiving intensive care in the south-west. Due to the early start of school and the number of people returning from travel - the holidays in the southwest will end this weekend - the doctors expect a further increase in the number of infected people and thus more Covid-19 patients who have to be treated in the intensive care units. In contrast to the first, second and third waves, the Ministry of Health and the intensive care physicians estimate the efficiency of the intensive care clinics in the country to be significantly lower, which has to do with the shortage of staff in the hospitals and the exhaustion of nurses.

In the second wave of the pandemic, the health system reached its limit with almost 700 Covid ventilators.

Now the limit is around 560 ventilated Covid intensive care patients.

"We urgently need to ensure that the health system is not overloaded, we have 20 percent fewer intensive care beds available due to the lack of staff," said Götz Geldner, president of the professional association of anesthetists, the FAZ. In order to contain a fourth wave, significantly more must finally be achieved be vaccinated.

"Patients who are double-vaccinated, whose immune system is healthy and who have a breakthrough vaccination do not end up in the intensive care unit."

Unvaccinated people should be motivated

With the new regulation, the state government also wants to motivate unvaccinated people to make use of the vaccination offers. A similar attempt is being made in schools, where teachers and the rest of the school staff now have to be tested daily if they are not yet fully vaccinated.

The FDP rejects the new regulation.

Michael Theurer, the state chairman and deputy chairman of the FDP parliamentary group, proposes a "3-G-plus rule" according to which people who have not been vaccinated should continue to have access to pubs or events.

However, the federal government must offer and pay for rapid PCR tests for this group of people.

The hotel and catering industry is also critical of the planned regulation.

Access restrictions for unvaccinated people always went hand in hand with economic losses, said the spokesman for the Baden-Württemberg Hotel and Gastronomy Association.

Contrary to what the state government has planned, the new regulation will not be legally binding on Monday.

Its basis, the Infection Protection Act as amended by the Bundestag, must first come into force.