Friday 29 October 2021
Contradictions of the corona policy
Mr. Spahn, what’s your plan?
A comment by Clara Suchy
The situation on the Corona front is worsening, the number of infections and hospitalizations are rising again. This begs the question of what the government intends to do about it. But Health Minister Spahn is sending contradicting signals.
Health Minister Jens Spahn has been pleading for the national epidemic to be lifted for almost two weeks. This would not end the pandemic, but “the state of emergency, established by the Bundestag, can, in my opinion, be ended because four out of five adults are vaccinated,” said the CDU politician on ZDF Sunday evening. With which he embellished the numbers a bit, because he left children and young people out. One can argue about the actual number of people vaccinated, but not about the number of infections. They rise by leaps and bounds. The intensive care beds are also filling up again – and another bottleneck threatens.
Less than five days after pleading for an end to the state of emergency, Spahn demands to strengthen the “protection concepts” again. On closer inspection, one does not rule out the other. But such messages do not contribute to clarity. Who else will come with you? Uwe Janssens from the intensive register DIVI at ntv expressed his displeasure when he said that they were “a bit unhappy that false signals are being sent, such as ‘end of the pandemic situation’ or ‘we are well vaccinated'”. At the beginning of the fourth wave, many questions arise and the Minister of Health does not exactly contribute to clarity.
Who should boost themselves now?
This is also the case with booster vaccinations. The Standing Vaccination Commission (STIKO) has on October 7th Booster vaccinations recommended for certain population groups. People over the age of 70, people who have been vaccinated with Johnson & Johnson or Astrazeneca, and people in the healthcare sector should now receive a booster vaccination. Next week Spahn wants to meet with the health ministers of the federal states and ask them to send vaccination invitations to all over 70-year-olds.
But suddenly it shouldn’t stop with the over 70-year-olds. Spahn himself advertises the third vaccination and has a booster vaccination – because of his Astra vaccination, he falls under the STIKO recommendation. “I am promoting that many others do the same,” said the CDU politician on Twitter. “Booster (strengthen) your vaccination protection for the winter.” In the RBB, Spahn uses data from Israel to explain how the booster vaccination can break a wave. And suddenly encourages: “Everyone who can be boosted also does something to ensure that we get through the winter safely.” This also includes those that are not mentioned in the recommendationsays Spahn.
To test or not to test, that is the question
The test strategy is also erratic. The federal government will first stop the free tests at the beginning of October. Vaccinated people no longer have to be tested – and the general population should no longer bear the costs of unvaccinated people. But on Friday Spahn told the RBB: “I strongly encourage the federal states to finally make test concepts mandatory for care facilities again.” Do vaccinated people then have to pay for tests in order to visit their relatives in care facilities? Or should the regulation that has been in force for less than a month already be repealed? Couldn’t you have seen it coming?
Once again, it looks like the federal government will be taken by surprise with the course of the pandemic. Although one could expect that there would be more infections again. Although one had to prepare for the fact that the willingness to vaccinate no longer increases and that booster vaccinations would be necessary. And although it was to be expected that there would be a significant number of vaccination breakthroughs. The government seems to want to work out a plan B quickly – you just don’t really know which one yet.