Does Germany need a mask requirement in public interiors again?
If Karl Lauterbach has his way: absolutely.
When presenting his vaccination campaign, it was clear to the Minister of Health how much he would have liked to have imposed a nationwide ordinance on the wearing of mouth and nose protection.
Instead, with reference to the sharp increase in the number of corona cases, he had to appeal to the federal states to finally take appropriate measures.
But neither Franziska Giffey in Berlin nor Winfried Kretschmann in Baden-Württemberg and certainly not Markus Söder in Bavaria are currently thinking of following Lauterbach.
All three can point to strong cross-party arguments.
There is no longer any threat of a horror scenario
In the third year of Corona, there is a high level of basic immunization in the population.
Due to the Omicron variant, the course of the disease is significantly milder than with Delta, and the vaccines - especially the adapted ones - develop a high protective effect against death and hospital admission.
Unlike in previous corona waves, there is no longer a threat of a horror scenario like in Bergamo, Italy, when doctors had to decide about life and death.
It's true: the pandemic is not over and the burden in many hospitals is high again.
Staff infected with Corona are absent, and many patients with Covid also have to be looked after.
But many come to the clinics because of other complaints, are first tested there and then have to be isolated in a labor-intensive manner.
In order to justify even a relatively small restriction of fundamental rights such as the obligation to wear a mask, a convincing justification is required.
The overloading of clinics alone should not be enough.
Especially since politics has not been able to alleviate the shortage of staff there.
If you want to protect yourself and others with a mask, you can and should do so on your own responsibility.
However, there is no obligation to do so, which no longer applies in countries that once acted more strictly.