Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) sees the corona summer wave in Germany broken - but no reason to give the all-clear in the pandemic.

"The summer wave is slowly starting to recede," said the SPD politician on Friday in Berlin.

There is a “robust decline in the number of cases”.

Mortality is also going down.

“First of all, there is reason to be happy.

That is still no reason for the all-clear.” It is to be expected that the number of cases will rise sharply again in autumn.

One also has to consider that the proportion of unregistered corona diseases has increased, said Lauterbach at the federal press conference.

"The number of unreported cases is increasing." This was shown by data from the Robert Koch Institute.

Lauterbach: States will take protective measures in the fall

According to Lauterbach, there is “very good news” about vaccines.

It can be assumed that adapted vaccines could be delivered as early as September 2nd or 28th.

“The federal government has procured both vaccines in sufficient quantities.

We will therefore also be supplied relatively early.” The vaccination campaign could then take place promptly.

The Federal Minister of Health rejected criticism of the new version of the Infection Protection Act developed together with Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP).

From October 1st, the countries could then introduce a mask requirement regardless of indoor incidences.

But you don't have to do this, explained Lauterbach.

But: “I believe that the countries will all do this because we will be there on October 1st.

will have higher case numbers again.”

It is also not the case that a vaccination will only be valid for three months in the future, and that you have to be vaccinated every three months, emphasized Lauterbach.

This deadline for exceptions to the mask requirement indoors was chosen because, according to the existing view, vaccinations protect against infection during this period.

They provided much longer protection against severe infections.

Getting vaccinated every three months would also be “completely nonsensical from a medical point of view”.