Due to the failure of politics in the federal and state levels, a lockdown is imminent in the south and southeast, millions of people could soon be involuntarily unvaccinated because they do not get an appointment for the booster. The old federal government screwed up that. Unfortunately, the traffic lights are hardly any better.
At the end of this week, even die-hard people look in disbelief at German politics. Whether old or new federal government, federal states or authorities such as the Standing Vaccination Commission: All appeals to persevere, gloomy Christmas warnings or calls for a faster pace and “new national feats” – they fall back on the senders with full force. They expose the state failures and their state failure.
This corona wave could be bigger than any previous one, but it was not seen coming. By the end of the year, around 25 million people will have a life-saving vaccination, but most vaccination centers are closed. The sharpest surgical instruments are banned at a moment when the less sharp instruments are apparently no longer sufficient.
Politics cannot be more naked to the wind.
Spahn, Merkel and Scholz: nothing done
Every sentence that starts these days with “We have to be very quick …” really says: “We were too stupid, in time …”. Health Minister Jens Spahn, for example, called for a “wake-up call” this week. Only one thing is true: that he slept. Why did the federal and state governments watch as the vaccination rate continued to slow down after the great successes and the vaccination rate in the summer remained well below the desired level?
The Chancellor can say of herself that she wanted to increase the pressure on the unvaccinated by far-reaching 2G rules as early as August. It failed because of the federal states, but did it try again afterwards? No she did not. Just as little as her Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who only wants to have something to do with the Corona policy when he is in the Chancellery. But it’s too late.
The two-thirds majority of those who have been vaccinated find themselves in brutal pincers. On the one hand, she is held jointly liable for all voluntarily unvaccinated fools in this country: In the south and southeast of Germany, what has already been decided in Austria, the lockdown for everyone, including those who have been vaccinated. The helplessly poorly prepared state does not know how to help itself. On the other hand, millions who queue for the third vaccination, the booster, could soon lose their vaccination protection.
CDU makes a fool of itself, the traffic light is scary
The same haphazard state has wasted the preparations for this, and those who are voluntarily vaccinated will soon become involuntarily unvaccinated. More societal explosives are not possible. The bottom line was that the old federal government, namely Chancellor Merkel and Health Minister Spahn, screwed up. If the CDU wants to distract from it in its new opposition role, it makes a fool of itself.
Unfortunately, the FDP, the Greens and the SPD are not doing much better. “The traffic light works before it exists,” said Green parliamentary leader Katrin Göring-Eckardt a few weeks ago. In the middle of the next wave, the new government set about removing large parts of the business basis of the fight against corona. She gave the Corona all-clear, at least that’s how it went with the population, and that’s what counts in politics. At least the new government corrected itself, but the first big appearance went wrong in such a way that one has to be afraid of everyone else.
Germany will also get through this crisis and this winter. But for the time being, you can only shout out to politicians in the federal and state governments: Thank you for nothing.