One of Germany’s ruling coalition parties has said that forced masking should be brought back this winter to help fight the flu.
Germany’s ostensibly liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), a globalist, pro-business member of Germany’s ruling coalition government, has said that it wants to see forced masking brought back this winter to help fight the flu.
The country has already confirmed that it aims to return country-wide forced mask-wearing measures to Germany this winter, likely between October and Easter next year ostensibly in the hopes of keeping COVID-19 case numbers low.
However, according to a report by Die Welt, some in government appear to have other motives, with the head of the FDP within the German parliament saying that the measures should be brought back to fight off the flu.
“We are concerned — and the doctors say so too — that we will have a severe influenza season, i.e. flu season,” the publication reports FDP bigwig Christian Dürr as saying.
“It may be even more relevant this winter than the Corona situation, which fortunately is under control,” he went on to say.
Dürr’s statement follows confirmation from authorities within the so-called “traffic light coalition” that a mask mandate will soon be returning to Germany, with the country’s lockdown-loving health minister, Karl Lauterbach, previously comparing mask mandates to laws requiring drivers to use winter tires during one half of the year.
“The effectiveness of masks for individuals indoors is undisputed”, government minister Marco Buschmann claimed in an interview, continuing. “That is why some form of wearing masks indoors will certainly play a role in our concept”.
“We are already working with mask requirements in local public transport,” he remarked, before adding that the government allegedly does not want to return to full-scale COVID lockdowns.
“We agree in the coalition that there will be no more lockdowns, no blanket school closures and no curfews,” he claimed. “These are inappropriate tools in the third year of the pandemic.”
While many will no doubt not be pleased at being forced to wear a mask again over winter, it may end up being the least of the German public’s problems should the country’s supply of gas fail when the weather turns.
With Moscow seemingly mulling whether or not to cut Germany off from Russian energy exports, the central European state faces the possibility of having around €200 billion wiped from its economy within a matter of six months, with a complete gas cut-off likely to force authorities to divert supplies from businesses to private households just to keep the heat on.
Nevertheless, German authorities have seemingly warned the public not to get to upset over any potential fuel shortage, with the country’s Antifa-linked interior minister, Nancy Faeser, saying that there is a danger of those in the anti-lockdown movement being emboldened by the government’s failure to keep energy supplies stable.
“Of course there is a risk that those who roared out their contempt for democracy during the Corona period and were often out and about with right-wing extremists will see the sharply rising prices as a new mobilization issue try to abuse,” Faeser is reported as saying, before going on to claim that many wanted to see the German government fail more so as to gain political ground.
“They want to exacerbate crises in order to make a profit from them,” she argued.
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