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Paul Ehrlich Institute: evidence of Covid infection despite vaccination


The President of the Paul Ehrlich Institute, Klaus Cichutek, dampens hope that those who have been vaccinated will not spread the virus.

Langen - Animal experiments on Old World monkeys have shown that the vaccination prevents disease, he told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS). Viruses were still detectable in the nose and throat. Cichutek nevertheless sees a slowing effect on the pandemic.

"Even if sterile immunity is not achieved after vaccination, it is possible that the SARS-CoV-2 viral load and the spread of the virus is reduced," he told the FAS. Politicians of the ruling parties also consider it possible that people who have been vaccinated can become infected with the coronavirus without getting sick and infect others with it. For the time being, they do not want to make a distinction between vaccinated and non-vaccinated people, mask requirements and assembly bans should continue to apply to vaccinated people. "The discussion started by the SPD about a ban on privileging those vaccinated against corona is a phantom debate," said the legal policy spokesman for the Union parliamentary group, Jan-Marco Luczak, to FAS. You just don't know "whether people are no longer contagious after vaccination".

As long as this is the case, the question of privilege does not arise, it is purely hypothetical and only unsettles people. The legal policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, Johannes Fechner, also argued that people who had been vaccinated could continue to be contagious. "It is still unclear whether vaccinated people are contagious and, moreover, not all citizens have access to vaccinations. As long as that is so, there can be no special privileges for vaccinated people, as important as vaccinations are," he told the FAS . The Vice-President of the European Parliament, Katarina Barley (SPD), said it was "still unclear whether and how long the vaccination protects against the spread of the virus". Also for this reason "the question of a different treatment for vaccinated persons does not arise". At the European level, she warned against different regulations for vaccinated people.

"After the border chaos from the spring, a patchwork of regulations for vaccinated people would be a new challenge for European unity," said Barley. If it turns out that vaccinated people are no longer infectious, the deputy FDP chairman, Wolfgang Kubicki, demands that all restrictions be lifted for them. "This is not a special Covid law, but the expression of our free constitutional state," said Kubicki. 

The former President of the Federal Constitutional Court, Hans-J rgen Papier, also said that there could be no talk of "privileges" or "special rights" for vaccinated people. "If it should show in the future that vaccinated people cannot infect others either, They would also lose their constitutional legitimation for measures such as exit and contact restrictions or the obligation to wear a mask," said Papier. Even the legislator's wish to avoid social tensions could not change that - especially since as the former Federal Constitutional Judge Dieter Grimm said, "Nobody can foresee whether there would be such tensions at all or whether it might not, conversely, lead to discord if vaccinated people are forced to adhere to the rules that no longer make sense to them." Nevertheless, Grimm assumes that the legislature has a wide margin of appreciation, since loosening of the rules for vaccinated people could have consequences that are difficult to foresee: "A concert does not only consist of its guests, whose vaccination status would have to be checked at the gate, but also from musicians, technicians, service personnel and many other people who all have to travel to and from and work together."

The constitutional lawyer Christoph Möllers therefore pleads for a distinction on the basis of the fundamental rights concerned: "A demonstration in which only vaccinated people take part will neither be forbidden nor subject to infection protection laws. In the case of minor interventions such as a mask requirement in the pedestrian zone, the legislature does not have to differentiate according to the vaccination status for reasons of practicality. "In the private sector, Papier and Möllers agree. In any case, access to essential facilities such as pharmacies or public transport must not be made dependent on the vaccination status. According to Papiers, operators of hotels, restaurants or theaters must in principle be able to freely decide to whom they allow admission, whereas Möllers, on the other hand, considers a statutory prohibition of discrimination to be permissible for the time being, to prevent a two-class society.

Photo: ZDF
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