Giffey: Staff shortages due to Coronavirus cause problems

Franziska Giffey (SPD), Governing Mayor of Berlin

The ongoing Coronavirus pandemic is having a noticeable impact on the staffing situation in hospitals, according to Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey.

While infected people usually have a milder course of disease, "what causes problems is actually the associated staff shortage," Giffey said on Tuesday (March 22, 2022) after a Senate meeting. Even with mild disease progressions, the people concerned are absent from work because of quarantine.

New quarantine rules to compensate staff shortages

Against this background, Giffey pleaded for a revision of the current quarantine regulations. In the coming weeks, she said, there would have to be a nationwide discussion about whether ten days of quarantine for infected persons, with the option of clearing themselves after five or seven days, was still in keeping with the times. Giffey reiterated that the vast majority of Coronavirus restrictions in Berlin will be abolished from April 1 on the basis of the federal government's new Infection Protection Act. Only a few so-called basic protective measures will remain in place, such as mandatory face masks on public transport and in hospitals and nursing homes. Further Covid tests will be carried out at schools and daycare centers.

Berlin not considered Coronavirus hotspot

For the time being, there are no plans to declare Berlin a Coronavirus hotspot by parliamentary resolution. The Infection Protection Act provides for this possibility, which allows the individual states to adopt stricter protective measures in the event of high Coronavirus infection numbers. In Berlin, the necessary criteria for this to happen have not been met, Giffey said. According to the Senate Department for Health, the German capital recorded the second-lowest incidence of all federal states on Tuesday, when the incidence was 997.1.