GTERSLOH (dpa-AFX) – After the severe corona outbreak in North Rhine-Westphalia, the travel opportunities for people from the risk areas have deteriorated significantly. Saarland’s Prime Minister Tobias Hans spoke out on Thursday for a nationwide ban on travel for people from rural areas with high corona infections. The CDU politician in Saarbrcken said that a “nationwide uniform procedure” was required for travelers from affected areas. “For local lockdowns to work, travel from counties with high infection rates should not be possible,” the statement said. Several federal states have already pushed ahead with their own restrictions and accommodation bans.
In the Gtersloh district in NRW, which was badly hit by the outbreak, numerous people continued to be tested voluntarily. The results brought a glimmer of hope: Of the 2000 current corona tests in people from the general population, only one had been positive, said NRW Minister of Health Karl-Josef Laumann (CDU) in the health committee of the Dusseldorf state parliament.
In the evening, the district of Gtersloh gave more recent figures: 2521 cuts had been taken by Thursday 3 p.m. 1655 results are available. One of them is clearly positive, two are weakly positive. In coordination with the Robert Koch Institute, the district counted these weakly positive cases. So there are a total of three positive cases.
In order to have a better overview of the infection process, the mass tests have been massively expanded. 10,000 tests are planned every day. Five new test centers were to be set up in the Gtersloh district on Thursday. There is also a drive-in center. Citizens can stay in the car there during the test.
At the meat company Tnnies, there had recently been a massive corona outbreak with more than 1,500 infected workers. In the district of Gtersloh, but also in the district of Warendorf, the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants has recently been significantly above the 50 mark in the last seven days. According to the Robert Koch Institute, the rates on Thursday in the Gtersloh district dropped to 192.8 and in the district of Warendorf to 50.4.
In the Corona crisis, the federal government and the federal states agreed that stricter measures should be taken into account again in the past seven days if the brand has reached 50 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants. The state of North Rhine-Westphalia also did this for the two groups concerned and temporarily restricted everyday life again until June 30th.
Further federal states reacted, just in time for the summer travel season, with bans for vacationers from such corona risk areas. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, Baden-Wuerttemberg and Bavaria have imposed a ban on accommodation or other restrictions for people from the hotspots who do not have a negative corona test.
Rhineland-Palatinate opted for a quarantine requirement for travelers from risk areas in Germany and abroad. Prime Minister Malu Dreyer (SPD) emphasized that it was not a “Lex Gtersloh”. In the case of Lower Saxony, however, the new rule applies specifically to people from the Gtersloh and Warendorf districts. A landing ban for airmen from NRW in Austria is off the table, according to the Ministry of Health in Vienna.
The call for a uniform regulation among the federal states is growing louder. Similar to Saarland’s Prime Minister Hans, Saxony’s Minister of Health Petra Kpping also said on Thursday that there should be as uniform a regulation as possible nationwide on how travelers from regions should be dealt with “with a very high infection rate”, said the SPD politician. Several variants are currently being discussed between the federal states.
The Dehoga hotel and restaurant association is also putting pressure on: “With a view to the beginning of the holiday season, we urgently demand understandable, practicable, unambiguous and at best nationwide regulations with precise instructions on how to deal with travelers from high-risk counties,” said Dehoga CEO Ingrid Hartges the editorial network Germany (Friday). Possible liability risks should not lie with the accommodation companies. “There has to be an unequivocal regulation of who pays for cancellation costs and any loss of earnings, and which government agency controls compliance,” said Hartges.
In the districts of Gtersloh and Warendorf, long lines of people had already formed in front of the test centers on Wednesday who wanted to take a corona test in order to be certain of an upcoming vacation with a negative result. The rush remained large on Thursday. This Friday is the last day of school in North Rhine-Westphalia before the summer holidays.
According to the NRW Ministry of Health, there was a first wave of infected people at the meat processor Tnnies in mid-May in connection with a “church event”. State Secretary Edmund Heller said in a special session of the state parliament’s health committee. After researching the portal “t-online.de “was a service on May 17th. This service in a church in Herzebrock-Clarholz was also attended by workers from a competitor of Tnnies.
The spokesman for the district of Gtersloh confirmed the relevant findings. Both employees of Tnnies and another company from the industry were on site. But whether this event is the reason for the Corona outbreak at Tnnies is completely open./nif/DP/mis
