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HEALTH

German Bundesliga issues guidelines for fans’ return to stadiums

The return of supporters to German stadiums next season took a step closer on Wednesday as the 36 clubs in the Bundesliga's top two tiers received guidelines on how to keep spectators safe from infection amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Published: 16 July 2020 08:58 CEST
German Bundesliga issues guidelines for fans' return to stadiums
When will real fans return to stadiums in Germany? AFP

The Bundesliga season finished at the end of June with the last nine round of matches played behind closed doors.

However, with clubs having lost millions in match day revenue, the German Football league (DFL) has provided help in how to create a safe environment in grounds.

READ ALSO: All eyes on Germany as Bundesliga football returns

“The guideline serves as an orientation for the basic structure” of hygiene concepts and “contains numerous aspects to be considered,” the DFL said in a statement.

Each club would need their concept approved by the local health authority.

The DFL's guide has already been submitted to the German government's Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) for evaluation.

As the league points out, the BMG says high standards of protection to prevent infection is a basic requirement before fans can return.

Germany has had around 200,000 coronavirus cases, the majority which have recovered, and recorded 9,071 deaths due to the virus.

Top clubs like champions Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and RB Leipzig are reportedly already working on hygiene concepts which could see a number of fans return.

Dortmund have tested a system to measure body temperatures of supporters.

“I am hopeful that at least a small proportion of fans will be admitted again from September,” Dortmund chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke said at the end of June.

Union Berlin are looking into playing home games in front of a full house when the 2020/21 campaign starts in Germany on September 18th.

Union want club employees tested and for all 22,000 ticket holders for each home game to produce a negative test for COVID-19 within 24 hours of kick-off.

However, Union's plans have already been criticised and a leading virologist dubbed it “irresponsible”.

“Until we have a vaccine, there won't be a full stadium,” Ulf Dittmer, director of virology at the University Hospital in Essen told newspaper WAZ.

Dittmer worries despite a negative test, someone could still be “infectious one day later in the stadium” and spread the virus on packed terraces.

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COVID-19

Is the pandemic over in Germany?

As much of Germany lifts - or prepares to lift - the last remaining Covid-19 measures, intensive care units say Covid-19 admissions are no longer straining the system.

Published: 24 January 2023 09:00 CET
Is the pandemic over in Germany?

Despite a difficult winter of respiratory illnesses, intensive care units in Germany say Covid-19 admissions have almost halved. The number of cases having to be treated in the ICU has gone down to 800 from 1,500 at the beginning of this month.

“Corona is no longer a problem in intensive care units,” Gernot Marx, Vice President of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, told the German Editorial Network. “A the moment, we don’t have to think every day about how to still ensure the care of patients, but how to actually run a service that can help.”

Marx said the drop has allowed them to catch up on many postponed surgeries.

The number of sick employees in hospitals is also falling, helping to relieve the pressure on personnel.

The easing pressure on hospitals correlates with the assessment of prominent virologist and head of the Virology department at Berlin’s Charite – Christian Drosten – who said in December that the pandemic was close to ending, with the winter wave being an endemic one.

German federal and state governments are now in the midst of lifting the last of the country’s pandemic-related restrictions. Free Covid-19 antigen tests for most people, with exceptions for medical personnel, recently ended.

READ ALSO: Free Covid-19 tests end in Germany

Six federal states – Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hessen, Thuringia, Lower Saxony, and Schleswig-Holstein – have ended mandatory isolation periods for people who test positive for Covid-19.

Bavaria, Saxony-Anhalt, and Schleswig-Holstein have ended the requirement to wear FFP2 masks on public transport, while Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia, and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania will follow suit on February 2nd.

At that time, the federal government will also drop its requirement for masks to be worn on long-distance trains. Labour Minister Hubertus Heil says that’s when he also intends to exempt workplaces – apart from medical locations – from a mask requirement.

READ ALSO: Germany to drop mask mandate in trains and buses from February 2nd

Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg will also end the requirement for patients to wear a mask in doctor’s offices. That’s a requirement that, so far, will stay in place everywhere else. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has also said that he thinks this requirement should remain. 

But some public health insurers and general practitioners are calling for a nationwide end to the obligation for wearing masks in doctor’s offices.

“The pandemic situation is over,” National Association of Statutory Health Physicians (KBV) Chair Andreas Gassen told the RND network. “High-risk patients aren’t treated in all practices. It should generally be left up to medical colleagues to decide whether they want to require masks in their practices.”

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