BERLIN, Jan. 17 (Reuters) – People vaccinated against COVID-19 should be able to go to restaurants and cinemas earlier than others, said a German minister, arguing against other cabinet members who so far oppose special freedoms for those vaccinated to be.
Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the state has massively restricted people’s basic rights to contain infections and avoid overwhelming hospitals.
“It is not yet definitively clear to what extent vaccinated people can infect others,” Maas told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
“What is clear is that a vaccinated person no longer takes a respirator away. This removes at least one central reason for limiting fundamental rights. “
According to the Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases, about 1 million people in Germany had been vaccinated as of Friday. At the end of 2020, about 83.2 million people lived in the country, according to data from the statistics office.
Maas’s comments contrast with other German ministers, who oppose such special rights, fearing that this could lead to inequality in society at a time when not everyone has the opportunity to get vaccinated.
Home Secretary Horst Seehofer has said that a distinction between vaccinated and unvaccinated people would amount to mandatory vaccination, which he opposed.
Maas said the government also restricted the rights of people running restaurants, cinemas, theaters and museums.
“They have the right to reopen their businesses at some point, if they can,” he said, adding that if there were only vaccinated people in such locations, they could no longer put each other in danger.
While Maas acknowledged that this could lead to inequalities during a “transition period,” he said such a move would be justified under the constitution as long as there was an objective reason and it did not affect basic government services.
Germany has extended lockdown measures until at least the end of January, and Chancellor Angela Merkel brought an early meeting with regional leaders on Tuesday to discuss tighter restrictions. (Reporting by Caroline Copley; edited by Pravin Char)