In the flared-up discussion about an end to mandatory masking, CSU state group leader Alexander Dobrindt has urged caution. It is true that the proportionality of Corona measures must be reviewed again and again, said Dobrindt on Sunday in the ZDF program "Berlin direct". Here, he said, a distinction must also be made between inside and outside."I can well imagine that we drop the mask requirement where it still exists at all outside," Dobrindt stressed. That decision, he said, would be made by the states. For indoors, however, he advises caution, also in view of more contagious virus mutations. Therefore, one should not become careless here.

Federal Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht had stressed in the "Bild am Sonntag" that the states would have to clarify "whether and where a mask requirement is still proportionate if the incidence figures are low and continue to fall." Especially for students who have to wear masks for hours in class, this is a burden, he said.

Saxony has lifted the mask requirement in class as of this Monday. Accordingly, the mask requirement will no longer apply to students and staff in school buildings if the regional seven-day incidence is stably below 35. However, wearing an FFP2 mask or medical mask is still recommended. "I consider the relaxation steps not only responsible, but imperative," explained Minister of Education Christian Piwarz (CDU). Children and young people had suffered greatly under the lockdown. "This must now come to an end".

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has already partially abolished the mask requirement in schools. Lower Saxony had withdrawn from a move to abolish the mask requirement in the retail sector at the end of May.

FDP vice president Wolfgang Kubicki called for a complete end to mandatory masks in light of the current figures. "With a clear incidence below 35, the state must not restrict basic rights across the board for all citizens at all. The general mask obligation would therefore have to be lifted on a strict interpretation of the Infection Protection Act, even more so outside," Kubicki told Bild am Sonntag.AfD deputy chairwoman Beatrix von Storch said on ZDF television, "The mask requirement must go. It can no longer be justified. It is the most visible expression of the state of emergency. It must be ended now. We have to show our faces again."

The SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach, on the other hand, warned that the demand for a complete lifting of the mask obligation was "electioneering with the health of the citizens". Of course, the mask requirement could be lifted outside almost everywhere, there is no superspreading. "But indoors, unfortunately, it can," Lauterbach warned on Twitter.

Image by Michael Hofmann