"These draconian measures would no longer be taken today"

Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) has again admitted mistakes in the fight against the corona pandemic. For example, there was a wrong focus on reducing contacts in Germany, he said on Wednesday evening on ZDF's "heute journal". Other countries have severely reduced contacts in companies. "We have greatly reduced the contacts with the children, especially with the daycare children and school children."

You shouldn't repeat that, but at the time it was not so clear due to the study situation how contagious children were. "We then did things better afterwards," explained Lauterbach, who has been Health Minister since December 2021. Children were regularly tested and schools remained open.

Other rules were also exaggerated. "These draconian measures - bans on going out, wearing masks in the open air, closing off children's playgrounds outside - these were things that would no longer be done today." Even then, they were not well covered by studies. Compared to other countries with a similarly old population, Germany came through the pandemic well, said Lauterbach.

Lauterbach only said on Monday that, in retrospect, the long closures of schools and daycare centers were wrong. The SPD politician, who took over the Ministry of Health from Jens Spahn (CDU), was an advocate for school closures and curfews during the pandemic.