Pandemic Europe acts in the face of the fourth wave
Germany will impose the so-called 2G rule to try to break the wave of coronavirus that is hitting the country, which, given the record numbers of infections that are being registered, has been forced to
transfer Covid patients to neighboring countries
due to overload of the hospital system.
The 2G regulation is a kind of safe conduct for vaccinated people and people who have already overcome the disease, the only group that from now on will be able to lead a normal life without restrictions.
Leisure, culture, sports facilities
and food outlets would only be accessible to those in possession of the 2G certificate. The rules would come into force, as they have already done in many parts of the country, when the hospitalization rate is three Covid patients per 100,000 people in the last week. If the rate stays below 3 for five days in a row, the restrictions can be eased.
Children under the age of 18, the vast majority of whom are not vaccinated, are exempt from the rule.
If the rate rises above 6, even those who are vaccinated or have recovered from Covid-19 will have to submit a negative coronavirus test to access public facilities. It would be called the 2G Plus rule.
The imposition of the 2G rule has been one of the most striking conclusions of the conference that the acting chancellor, Angela Merkel, has celebrated with the presiding ministers of the "Länder". The meeting, in telematic format, was preceded by the approval in the Bundestag of a new infection law.
The law, which has yet to pass the Bundesrat filter, will replace the one approved last year
to provide the legal basis for the state of emergency and which expires on the 25th.
The segregation of the population based on the immunity acquired through vaccination or for having overcome the disease was an announced chronicle, so much so that the three parties that negotiate the formation of the Government were against the closure of the economy, confinements, closures of schools and mobility restrictions imposed in the past to prevent the spread of the virus. His bet is on vaccination and increased pressure on those who, for whatever reasons, have not done so.
"Compliance with access regulations will be monitored consistently and even more intensively than before",
picks up the document tested by the federal government and the "Länder" in anticipation, as has already happened of fraud in the granting of certificates or simply of forgeries. "
Merkel believes that the situation is
"desperate"
and warned of the "drama" that could occur once the containment instruments are withdrawn from the federal states with the new law, which has in advance the opposition of the "Länder" governed by the conservatives of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Bavarians of the Social Christian Union (CSU).
The friction point between the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Greens and Liberals (FDP) with the conservative bloc directly touches the federal order and the room for maneuver of the "Länder". The regulation promoted by the fledgling tripartite
eliminates the legal basis
that has allowed the declaration of a state of emergency and the federal states to dictate far-reaching restrictions practically by decree, such as curfews, closing of shops or schools.
The SPD, Greens and FDP no longer want to make this type of measures possible, except in the recreational, cultural or sports fields and subject to the restrictions they pass through the different regional parliaments. The range of measures contemplated by the law of the future government coalition ranges from the reinforcement of hygiene measures to the introduction of controls in nursing homes, jobs, public transport and public spaces in general. The complete closure of sectors will no longer be possible, but the establishment of restrictions based on the degree of immunity of citizens will be possible.
Three groups are established, that of vaccinated, healed and with a negative test
(3G), the 2G and 2G Plus.
The "Länder" governed by the CDU / CSU threaten to block the law in the Bundesrat if they are not given more options for restrictions and closures.
"
The new provisions would eliminate the powers of regional governments,"
criticized deputy Thorsten Frei in the parliamentary debate.
The future tripartite wants to bet on vaccination and Merkel has little room for maneuver.
His offer to the "Länder" was 27 million vaccines, in the hope that the vaccination quota, which is at
68%, will
increase sensitively and quickly and all those vaccinated will be able to receive the booster dose.
The situation is borderline.
In the past 24 hours, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) recorded
65,371
new infections, surpassing the 60,000 mark for the first time.
The seven-day incidence was 336.9 per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 249.1 a week ago and only 74.4 a month ago.
"We will have an extremely unpleasant Christmas if we do not act to stop this,"
said RKI President Lothar Wieler.
These are unprecedented records that have led to the collapse of hospitals and
forced the evacuation of patients to other countries.
This is the case of Covid patients in need of intensive care in Bavaria, one of the federal states most affected by this fourth wave. According to Rainald Kaube, director of the Freising hospital in Munich, last week the center was forced to transfer patients by helicopter to Bozano (northern Italy).
According to data from the Interdisciplinary Association of Intensive Care Medicine (DIVI), published this Thursday, in 100 of 400 districts there is only one free bed and there are 50 districts that no longer have free beds in intensive care.
Although the total number of patients in the ICU, 3,400, is lower than that of the peak moments of the second and third waves - with 5,700 and 5,100 patients respectively - the shortage of personnel has reduced ICU capacities and that there are fewer beds available than a year ago.
"The health services are saturated, the necessary operations have to be postponed,
the incidence grows and every day record numbers of infections are announced," the Bavarian Red Cross and other organizations said in a joint statement.
The president of the Bavarian Red Cross, Theo Zellner, warned that the current situation is more serious than that of December 2020. "The current saturation of ICUs and emergency services, largely due to unvaccinated patients, make the situation is clearly more dramatic. There are
serious and urgent patients who have to be transferred to hospitals that are hours away, "he
explained.
The approval of this law is the first mark of the tripartite that will assume power in Germany once the negotiations are completed, which are especially fast compared to the previous ones.
The three parties involved will present a coalition agreement next week that will then be submitted to their bases for approval.
The objective is to have a government at the beginning of December.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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