The chairman of the board of directors of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, Andreas Gassen, has met with criticism with his call for an end to the mandatory isolation of people infected with corona.

“Infected people have to stay at home.

Otherwise, not only will the number of cases increase even more, but the workplace itself will become a safety risk," wrote Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) on Twitter at the weekend.

Lauterbach's ministry said that further reducing the isolation, which currently lasts at least five days, "makes no sense".

With the current regulations, a reaction to the worsening personnel situation due to the large number of infected people was made in the spring.

Gassen had campaigned at the weekend for an end to rigid isolation rules in order to counter staff shortages in hospitals, among other places.

“Anyone who is sick stays at home.

Anyone who feels healthy goes to work.

That's how we do it with other infectious diseases like the flu," Gassen told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung.

The course of the disease is almost always mild.

“So the problem is not the many infections, but that those who test positive stay at home for several days even without symptoms and are sent into isolation.” Lower Saxony’s Health Minister Daniela Behrens (SPD) also contradicted the proposal.

Gassen received support from the FDP.

Their health politician Andrew Ullmann called Gassen's proposal a "solution-oriented approach to enable smarter and individual handling of corona infections".

Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki and the Secretary General of the Liberals, Bijan Djir-Sarai, also support Gassen's initiative.

"In my view, it is overdue, both epidemiologically and for reasons of personal responsibility, to let people make this decision again - as other European countries have long since done," said Kubicki to the newspapers of the Funke media group.

According to their own statements, the hospitals in Germany are currently treating about twice as many patients as at the same time last year.

"The burden is constantly increasing, the significant additional effort due to the obligation to isolate is increasing," said Gerald Gass, CEO of the German Hospital Society, to the newspapers of the Funke media group.

According to the Robert Koch Institute, around 3,100 patients per week had to be admitted to the hospital just because of Covid 19 symptoms alone.