About 755 million protective masks, which have run out in Germany’s state warehouses, are planned to be burned by the German government, with the cost of the whole process estimated at almost seven million euros. According to a report in the newspaper Welt, these are masks whose expiration date has passed and have thus become useless. In fact, in some cases the “cremation” of masks has already progressed.

The German Ministry of Health calls for compliance with customs legislation as well as the German Waste Management Act. In fact, a public tender was held for the process of burning masks, which is expected to take several months.

“They should have been channeled into health structures”

However, the Christian Democrat former health minister Jens Spahn, during whose term the pandemic broke out, is also strongly criticized. The then-Merkel government “oversupplied” masks in 2020, during the first heavy wave of coronavirus, before vaccinations began.

But the Christian Democrats are now in the position of the official opposition and oppose the current coalition government that, since the expiration date of the masks was known, Social Democratic Health Minister Karl Lauterbach should have found an alternative in time. More specifically, he should have taken care to channel the masks to clinics, hospitals, welfare structures or facilities for people with disabilities.

It is worth noting that ten German states, including North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, Lower Saxony, intend to follow or have already partially followed the practice of burning masks followed by the federal government.

Mandatory mask use and other days taken in previous years to protect against the coronavirus have been lifted for months in Germany. The operation of the Corona-Warn-App, which sent updated data on the course of the pandemic, warning of a possible increased risk of infection, was also recently suspended.