Unfortunately, this message was apparently not heard in parts of the state government. Just four days later, Karl-Josef Laumann's CDU-led Ministry of Health published the new Corona Protection Ordinance - and in it, contact data collection suddenly no longer plays a role. In North Rhine-Westphalia, this means that since Friday, no more data has to be provided when visiting a restaurant or pub.

In state government circles, it is said that the Ministry of Economics only learned about this on Monday, shortly before the publication of the ordinance. But there were no more changes on this point. And so Laumann had duped his FDP colleague Pinkwart, of all people, who had campaigned so strongly to make pandemic management more efficient with digital technologies.

But the Ministry of Economics was taking the development in stride: The regulation merely implements the outcome from the federal and state consultations of August 10, 2021. "From the very beginning, the Ministry of Economics has been in favor of the simplest possible regulations and has advocated responsible opening steps," a spokesman said. Yet it seems that the matter is not seen by all as a done deal. The hospitality, retail and events industries should continue to build digital capabilities to "ensure safe and, as far as possible, unrestricted operations in the event of a worsening pandemic situation," a spokesperson commented. Elsewhere, there are also doubts about the wisdom of eliminating measures such as contact data collection when incidence rates are on the rise.

Of the ten cities and counties with the highest incidence nationwide, eight are in NRW. On Sunday, the number of reported cases per 100,000 inhabitants was already 99.2 within a 7- day period.

This is probably one of the reasons why the NRW Association of Cities views the state's plans with concern. "The waiver of the documentation requirement is an experiment with an open outcome," says Helmut Dedy, managing director of the NRW Association of Cities: "The cities very much hope that the state government's confidence in the 3-G strategy will take effect in reality." The CDU and FDP are banking on the fact that the number of new infections will be slowed down by the so-called 3-G strategy: Vaccinated, Tested, Recovered.

For the cities, the state's decision is doubly annoying. Not only that they were not informed in advance about the plans to eliminate contact data collection. Many cities have also purchased licenses from providers of such contact data collection solutions for local retailers and restaurants, which are now useless, at least for now.

But the hotel and restaurant association Dehoga NRW welcomes the decision. At Dehoga, they say they have experienced that the data was rarely if ever requested.

In Cologne, however, one assesses the situation quite differently. According to a spokesperson, the fact that the additional bureaucracy of the public health department did not help was due to the fact that there had not yet been any good and uncomplicated procedures for accessing the digital guest lists. "The recent implementation of the Iris Connect gateway system has allowed us to significantly streamline and optimize processing."

(Orig. text: Florian Rinke, Translation: Carol Kloeppel)