After the failure of the general corona vaccination obligation, the Bavarian state government only wants to punish violations of the institution-related vaccination obligation to a limited extent.

"In Bavaria, we will proceed generously with regard to sanctions and will consider not exhausting the federal fine framework, but only applying it significantly reduced," said Bavaria's Minister of Health Klaus Holetschek of the "Augsburger Allgemeine" on Monday.

The Free State will use all the leeway provided by the law, the minister explained.

Since March 15th, the facility-related corona vaccination has been mandatory in hospitals and in care.

Employees must provide their employer with proof of a corona vaccination or recovery or a contraindication.

The municipal health authorities can issue an employment ban against employees in the social and health sector without this proof.

You lose your salary entitlement.

Holetschek said a strict implementation of the so-called nursing vaccination requirement for health and social workers would be "unfair to those who have been fighting the pandemic on the front lines for two years."

Fraud in test accounts

Meanwhile, Holetschek still believes in a chance for general vaccination: "The majority of the population and also the majority in the Bundestag are in favor of it." However, if work is no longer being done to implement general vaccination, the facility-related vaccination must also be put to the test : "It was always only intended as a first step," said Holetschek.

On Thursday last week, compulsory corona vaccination from the age of 60 failed in the Bundestag.

Meanwhile, the “Handelsblatt” reported that at least 642 procedures for billing fraud in corona test centers had been initiated nationwide.

This was the result of a nationwide survey by the newspaper among public prosecutors and state criminal investigation offices.

In many cases, the investigations are still in their infancy, which is why the total damage caused by test fraud cannot yet be quantified.

According to the report, the alleged damage in five proceedings in Bochum, Offenburg, Freiburg and Mannheim was 49.5 million euros.

Bavaria announced that 60 investigations into suspected test fraud had been initiated in the Free State.

Holetschek (CSU) called it a "scandal when people cheat here", precisely because it is about people's health.

More than half of the cases were discovered in Berlin, where the State Criminal Police Office (LKA) initiated 347 proceedings.

According to the LKA, the number of cases in Baden-Württemberg is also in three digits.

The Stuttgart Ministry of Health was concerned that "half-witted operators right down to the criminal milieu" operated test sites;

it expects a high number of unreported cases in large cities.

The Associations of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KV) of the federal states are responsible for checking the statements from test centers.

The KV Lower Saxony informed the "Handelsblatt": "Most providers of test centers do their job properly." Some abnormalities are also simple input errors. 

According to the report, many of the investigations are being launched against operators of test centers because banks are reporting suspected money laundering.

Information from the population also led to proceedings.

Several authorities reported that people had received negative results via email while they were still waiting in line at the testing station.