Minister, this winter parties and mass events can take place again - even without a mask.

You called it “responsible normality”.

Are we back to normal yet?

Helen Bubrowski

Political correspondent in Berlin.

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Corinna Budras

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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In any case, we are in a much better position than in recent winters.

We have a much broader basic immunization in the population.

We will have enough adapted vaccines in the fall.

We have effective medicines.

Therefore, of course, we want to expect as little as possible from the citizens in their everyday lives.

If a federal state decides to make masks compulsory in publicly accessible indoor spaces, it must provide for an exception for tested people at cultural, leisure or sporting events.

Because public viewings at the World Cup or single parties are simply no fun with a mask.

Therefore, organizers can also hold mask-free events using their house rules - with tested guests.

This is epidemiologically responsible.

How much normality has arrived in your own life?

They're shaking hands again, we've noticed.

How do you feel about the mask?

In the spring we abolished Covid protective measures for almost all areas.

I was massively attacked for it at the time.

These people have now been belied by reality.

We got through the summer very stable.

It must not be that we get used to corona protection measures as a new normal.

These are encroachments on fundamental rights, which must always be an exception.

I still wear a mask voluntarily in the supermarket, for example.

This is my personal decision.

I did that before I got infected with Corona in July and also afterwards.

But now we have to prepare for autumn and winter.

According to the rules that the cabinet has now agreed on, there should be a mask requirement in long-distance transport and a mask and test requirement in clinics and nursing homes.

In addition, the federal states can decide on further measures.

What is the purpose of the rules?

We are now in a new phase of the pandemic.

It is no longer about preventing every single infection.

Citizens decide for themselves what risks they expose themselves to.

And as long as they primarily bear the consequences of this decision themselves, it is right that nobody interferes with them.

The aim is to keep the incidence of infection within limits and to prevent unacceptable negative effects on the community.

What is meant above all is an overload of the health system and the critical infrastructure as a whole.

It is unlikely that all federal states will impose the same measures.

It is quite possible that in one country newly vaccinated people can go to the bar without a mask, in another a test is required, in a third there is no mask requirement at all.

Is the patchwork quilt coming back?

In fact, the core of the concept is a moderate degree of room for manoeuvre.

The federal states can impose measures if certain conditions are met, but they do not have to.

Does that mean you want the patchwork quilt?

The word patchwork quilt is a polemical exaggeration and misjudges the federal state structure of our country.

It is normal in federalism that different rules apply in many areas.

The federal states are responsible for security.

Each country also has its own police law.

In the past two and a half years, we have seen that the pandemic can develop in very different ways.

We had months when the pandemic was raging badly in Saxony, but there were hardly any effects in Schleswig-Holstein.

And it damaged the acceptance of the measures when the citizens of Schleswig-Holstein had to endure the same severe measures as the citizens of Saxony.

I therefore believe that it is a sensible rule for countries to be able to decide, knowing what is happening on the ground,

which protective measures they use.

From a fundamental rights point of view, the scope for this is very moderate.