Germany Faces Fresh Corona Challenges As Fall Approaches
Strictly speaking, the local health authorities determine the duration on their own. But the two-week quarantine has become the national standard since the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the country’s disease control center, established it in a recommendation it issued on Jan. 22.
However, experts like prominent Berlin virologist Christian Drosten and SPD health policy expert Karl Lauterbach have been calling on RKI to reduce its recommended period of quarantine times from 14 to seven days. According to the latest findings, the longer quarantine period no longer makes sense. It would both relieve the health authorities and lead to increased acceptance of the quarantine policy by the populace.
Like Lauterbach, Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher is a Social Democrat and also studied to become a doctor. But Tschentscher strongly disagrees with him on the issue of self-isolation. “I don’t believe in relaxing the quarantine requirement,” he says. “They are medically reasoned, so that we’re on the safe side.”
But what is the safe side of the coronavirus? It’s the old problem.
RKI is currently on Tschentscher’s side. Officials there note that some studies have also found longer incubations periods, with five to 10 percent of infections occurring 14 days after the person spreading the contagion contracted it. “As such, there is still a residual risk after a quarantine period of 14 days, but the residual risk in the event of a reduction would be considerable,” RKI argues. The experts thus see “no strong argument” for deviating from the 14-day period, which is also what the World Health Organization recommends.
Chancellor Merkel and the state governors will have plenty to discuss this week. Crisis policies seemed to lack a focal point in recent weeks, with politicians on their summer recess and a lack of such meetings. They used to hold regularly scheduled meetings, but they were suspended following a sharp drop in infections. There’s a strong case for recommencing those meetings now in light of the lack of consensus on just about every question.
“I advocate a stronger role for the federal government,” says Lauterbach. He says the states regained their decision-making authority during the more pleasant phase of the easing of the lockdown. “Now that the second wave is coming, the governors are realizing that their autonomy is also borrowed time.”
Thuringia Governor Ramelow views things differently. He advocates a minimal federal role. “If there is one thing that needs to be regulated uniformly nationwide, it is the strengthening of the public health service,” he says. If we can manage joint health policies, then we would be pleased to decide on them together. But just because somebody gets nervous, doesn’t mean we all have to go into alarm mode.”
Governor Dreyer, for her part, can imagine a uniform upper limit on the number of participants at events, but not a blanket ban on the carnival festivities this winter and spring. She also favors individual state policies on this issue.
There does, however, seem to be at least one minimal consensus. “A lockdown like in March is out of the question and impermissible,” says Thuringia Governor Ramelow.
Icon: Der Spiegel