Many federal states are in the process of implementing the new corona rules decided by the Prime Minister’s Conference. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania too. And the discussion about compulsory vaccination continues. Enough material for the talk with Markus Lanz on ZDF on Tuesday evening.
It’s going to be an exciting week. In many federal states, the Corona resolutions of the Prime Minister’s Conference last Friday are being implemented. Also in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: Starting this Wednesday, boosters can visit a restaurant on the day of the vaccination without a test. Wise rule? Not for Timo Ulrichs, a guest at Lanz. The immunologist and frequent guest at NTV pointed out that the vaccines took up to two weeks to take full effect. His résumé: “You should wait a few days for the effects to take hold.”
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig from the SPD explained her Corona strategy in the Markus Lanz program on ZDF. It is about protecting the health and life of people, but also the economy and social coexistence. That is why your state is also implementing the shortened quarantine measures that have been decided. Schwesig is happy that clubs and discos are being closed in all federal states. Your state had started early after almost all intensive care beds were occupied in December. The result: Many people from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania had moved to neighboring Schleswig-Holstein for Christmas and New Year’s parties.
The third member is Johannes Nießen, the head of the largest health department in Germany, which is located in Cologne. He is happy about the uniform quarantine rules. However, it is difficult to explain to people over and over again during counseling sessions which rules apply now, he complains. “But we also appeal to initiative and personal responsibility,” he says. Here people still have to learn.
Nießen sees light at the end of the tunnel for the work of the health authorities. At the beginning of the crisis, the prime ministers agreed to put four billion euros into the health system in order, among other things, to increase the staffing of the health departments. These staff are now slowly arriving. Nonetheless, Nießen fears: “We have so many cases with the new Omikron variant that we cannot keep up with all of them.” In addition, the Cologne health department chief emphasizes that more and more health authorities are digitized. About his own office he says: “We have no fax machines!” With the new electronic reporting system one is connected to the Robert Koch Institute, and by the end of the year all doctors in private practice should have switched to it. “It’s going in the direction of a fax ban.”
Schwesig: “I am personally in favor of general vaccination requirements”
All three guests know: In the next few weeks, the incidence values with the new Omikron variant will go through the roof, also with us. But the course of the disease will be milder. That is why it is important not only to measure the hospitalization rate in the intensive care units, but also to expand it to the normal wards, says Manuela Schwesig. A general vaccination requirement might help to ease the situation further. She is for it, says Schwesig. Now it is important which proposals are presented for the planned Bundestag debate on this topic.
“At the beginning of the pandemic, I would not have imagined that we would even need a vaccination, especially not in East Germany,” she admits. The discussion is conducted in a highly emotional way, she can understand that. Also the demonstrations against it. However, there are very different trends. Radical forces already existed before Corona. But now there are border crossings.
Then Schwesig becomes specific: “Those who accuse this democratic constitutional state of being fascist are partly those who do something themselves. Whoever pulls torches in front of private houses has to ask himself how he is acting. It is a very small radical one Part that accuses the democratic state of this. We are certainly not doing everything right in the pandemic. But when it is said that the Federal Republic is not a democratic state based on the rule of law, I cannot leave it where it is. “
Ulrichs calls for more serenity
“You should try to argue and not throw around certain expressions,” warns immunologist Timo Ulrichs. We need to be clear about where our problems are, and one of the biggest is the low vaccination rate. And Nießen calls for critics to be taken seriously, especially in eastern Germany. In the GDR there was a vaccination rate of 99 percent, it was significantly higher than in the old Federal Republic. Nießen sees distrust of the state in the refusal to vaccinate many East Germans. Many decisions have been made that left many people in the East feeling left behind, he says.
As far as the introduction of mandatory vaccination is concerned, Nießen suggests three steps. The first is the already decided introduction of a facility-related vaccination requirement. First of all, the introduction of compulsory vaccinations for people over 50 years of age is important, and that worked out well in Australia. Then you have to consider whether a vaccination is necessary for everyone. After the introduction of the electronic health card, he now wants the electronic patient file to be able to monitor compliance. From there to a possible vaccination register, it is not far anymore.
Timo Ulrichs raises another question in the discussion: “What if we don’t introduce compulsory vaccinations?” Then you would always have to take a proportion of the unvaccinated with you through the next waves, and you could not go into the endemic situation with the necessary relaxation. Ulrichs says: “We have always followed the pandemic with our measures. If we now introduce compulsory vaccinations with foresight on the basis of the experience we now have, then we will take precautions – and prevent the waves that would otherwise be guaranteed . “