Berlin, Nov 24 (TIWN) Some German federal states have expressed support for mandatory Covid-19 vaccination as the country is witnessing a record surge in cases amid an ongoing fourth wave of the pandemic.

“We simply cannot get around the fact that if we want to get out of this mess, people have to get vaccinated,” Minister-President of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, told the broadcaster ARD.

In an article for the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Kretschmann wrote with Bavarian Minister-President Markus Soeder that compulsory vaccination was not a violation of freedom rights but a “prerequisite for regaining our freedom”, reports Xinhua news agency.