The Story

Four German states have rebelled against the federal government by ending mandatory quarantine for people who test positive for Covid-19.

After weeks of attempting to push Berlin into changing the rules around quarantine, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hessen and Schleswig-Holstein all announced last week that they would go it alone.

Under current rules, people who test positive for Covid-19 have to stay at home for at least five days.

But the four states, all of which are run by the conservative CDU/CSU, have said that enough Germans now have immunity against the virus to make mandatory quarantine redundant. They point to Austria, which ended quarantine in the summer, claiming that it hasn’t had a worse wave of infections than Germany.

But federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach made clear that he sees the move as “a serious mistake.”

“There is no medical reason to end quarantine,” Lauterbach told reporters. “We are still seeing something like a tho…