The federal and state governments had just assured each other of their unity when the first prime minister left again.

Saxony-Anhalt's Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff (CDU) sees no reason to introduce 2 G plus in gastronomy in view of the currently prevailing delta variant in his country.

Saxony-Anhalt will therefore stay at 2 G until January 18th. “It is our job to find differentiated solutions,” Haseloff justified himself and pointed out that everyone had to find their own timing.

Saxony-Anhalt also maintains that with 2 G plus, even those who have been boosted have to show a negative test, while those who have been vaccinated and those who have recovered in other countries are exempt from the obligation to test after a booster vaccination.

Heike Schmoll

Political correspondent in Berlin, responsible for the “educational worlds”.

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The federal and state governments also see this as a special incentive to have a booster vaccination administered as quickly as possible.

By Christmas, the traffic light government actually wanted to have given 30 million booster vaccinations, in the end it was 30 million vaccinations in total (including first and second vaccinations).

Now there is a new goal: by the end of January another 30 million cans should be inoculated.

There is no lack of vaccine, assured both Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (both SPD).

Boosted donors do not have to be quarantined

Several times, both Scholz and the North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU), as chairman of the Prime Minister's Conference, appealed to unvaccinated or incompletely vaccinated people to be vaccinated because of the easier possibility of infection with Omikron.

"Those who are not vaccinated endanger themselves," said the Chancellor.

Anyone who has not been vaccinated should expect the infection to reach them soon.

The risk of infection is a little lower than with Delta, but big enough.

Everyone must ensure that they protect themselves and others.

A study from Hamburg has now shown that so-called mild courses can lead to permanent organ damage - not only in the lungs, but also in the heart and kidneys.

In order to be able to maintain the critical infrastructure, the federal and state governments also agreed on Friday to shorten quarantine and isolation requirements. The quarantine should be completely dispensed with for boosted contact persons. The currently valid contact restrictions for private meetings remain in place. A maximum of ten people are allowed for vaccinated and convalescent people. Unvaccinated people are only allowed to meet members of their own household and a maximum of two people from another household. Children up to the age of 14 are excluded.

"The measures taken so far have proven their worth and we will continue with them in Hesse," said Hesse's Prime Minister Volker Bouffier (CDU), who referred to the current report by the Expert Council. According to this, the number of infections rose more slowly than in neighboring countries than elsewhere. Berlin's governing mayor, Franziska Giffey (SPD), warned to allow enough time for the legislative process when introducing a general compulsory vaccination. There will be “an orientation debate on this in January” in the Bundestag. The legislative process will be launched in February. The timetable must recognize that legislative time is also needed on this difficult issue, which affects 80 million people.

It was to be expected that the Union-led states and Baden-Württemberg failed in their attempt to have the epidemic situation of national scope decided again by the Bundestag.

The traffic light government would have seen it as a defeat.

The Chancellor was correspondingly brief: the current legal basis was completely sufficient for all measures.

There was no longer any talk of a initially feared lockdown or a closure of the cultural institutions.

The federal and state governments want to meet again on January 24th.