Germany’s health minister has said he is in favour of modifying quarantine rules to cope with a new wave of coronavirus caused by the Omicron variant, which is already dominant in some parts of the country.
Anyone infected with Omicron is required to quarantine for 14 days, and the same applies to their contacts, even if triple vaccinated. Some experts have suggested reducing the quarantine length to five days for people who show no symptoms and return a negative test result. England and Spain have shortened their quarantine times from 10 to seven days, and the US to five.
Omicron accounted for about 17,000 out of Germany’s almost 43,000 new confirmed cases on Thursday. The health minister, Karl Lauterbach, said the real infection rate was likely to be around two to three times higher owing to under-reporting and a lack of laboratory testing during the Christmas period, and he expected the confirmed daily figures to double within four or five days.
There are fears that if many thousands of people are infected, the health system and other essential services such as policing, firefighting, schools and rubbish collection could grind to a halt. Contingency plans are in place under which the army and the technical emergency agency, the THW, would take over vital infrastructure roles.
Since entering office this month Lauterbach has frequently acknowledged taking steers from experts in the UK owing to the more advanced spread of Omicron there. He said the German government’s expert council – a group including virologists, psychologists and sociologists – was working on a plan to adjust the length of quarantine required.
The Omicron surge is strongest in the north of the country, in particular areas such as Bremen, Hamburg, Schleswig Holstein and North Rhine Westphalia. The Netherlands and Denmark are also experiencing high Omicron rates.
With schools in Germany due to return on 3 January after the Christmas break, there have been calls for the holidays to be extended. Education ministers have called a meeting for 5 January, and the government and leaders of the 16 states are due to hold their next decision-making round on protection measures two days later. Experts have suggested decisions on school openings should be based on regional infection rates so as to cause the least disruption possible.
The eastern state of Thuringia, where infections are among the highest in the country, has said school holidays will initially be extended for two days. Karin Prien, the head of the conference of education ministers, said the aim should be to keep schools open owing to the psychological and social burdens of home schooling. “The schools should be the last area to have to once again face blanket closure,” she said.
Just over 71% of people in Germany are fully vaccinated, while 17.5 million people – not including the 4 million under-fives – are without any protection. A booster campaign has so far reached 38% of the population.
