Hamburg’s Mayor Peter Tschentscher (SPD) will maintain the mask requirement in local public transport and the isolation requirement in the event of a corona infection until spring 2023. In the first winter after the pandemic, the strong Tuesday increase in infectious diseases, including corona, is intended to be dampened and the healthcare system relieved, said Tschentscher. Caution is still required, especially in local public transport in large cities like Hamburg. Very crowded buses and trains are a classic risk factor for the transmission of infections via the respiratory tract.
The virologist Christian Drosten told the Berlin “Tagesspiegel”: “This winter we are experiencing the first endemic wave with Sars-Cov-2, in my opinion the pandemic is over.” The immunity of the population will be so broad after this winter and be resilient that the virus can hardly get through in the summer.
Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP) then said on Twitter that Drosten was one of the most cautious scientists in the pandemic. Now his finding is that the pandemic is over. As a political consequence, the last corona protection measures should be ended, wrote Buschmann.
On the other hand, the chairman of the World Medical Association, Frank Ulrich Montgomery, is on Tschentscher’s side. The Hamburger warns against carelessness in dealing with the corona pandemic. You can afford relief when dealing with the disease, the doctor told the newspapers of the Funke media group. “But we shouldn’t let everyone be careful.” It is part of good prevention to continue to protect yourself and others.
Corona, like influenza, will never go away completely, emphasized Montgomery. “Let’s also stay on our guard, but let’s also relax in the current handling of the corona virus. Above all, however, we should stop making infection control measures the subject of ideological discussions. ”Precaution, rationality and a sense of responsibility are required.