Following the rejection by the Bundestag (lower house of Germany's Parliament) of mandatory coronavirus vaccination in the country, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said on Friday that he expected the need for stricter COVID-19 measures in the autumn again.

"We certainly have to expect a wave," Lauterbach told journalists, adding that the country may not be optimally prepared for it. "I expected the country to be in a different position in the autumn."

On Thursday, the Bundestag rejected a proposal to make COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for adults aged 60 years and older.

The previous government under former Chancellor Angela Merkel had also rejected mandatory vaccination in Germany. However, both Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Lauterbach have spoken out in favor of such a step.

"This was a bad week for protecting the public from COVID-19 infection," Lauterbach said. In light of the vaccination gap that continues to exist, the mask mandate would be particularly important this autumn, he said.

After the weekly average of vaccine doses administered peaked at around 7.6 million at the end of 2021, the figure continued to drop to 284,551 weekly COVID-19 shots, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases.

Around 49 million people in Germany have received at least one booster dose, while 19.5 million people are still not vaccinated. The number of unvaccinated people in Germany has barely changed in recent months.