More incentives for boosters?
Lauterbach wants compulsory vaccination by May at the latest
01/18/2022 9:39 p.m
The parliamentary processes up to a possible vaccination obligation can drag on. In the “RTL Direct” interview, Minister of Health Lauterbach explains why he thinks she has to be there soon. He also gives a personal insight into how he reacts to death threats.
According to Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach, compulsory vaccination would have to come into force in April or May at the latest in order to avert another wave of corona in the coming autumn. “The obligation to vaccinate must come quickly,” said Lauterbach in an interview with “RTL Direkt” presenter Pinar Atalay. Because those who have not yet been vaccinated would then have to “go through three vaccination cycles” by autumn.
In general, Lauterbach sees the danger of another autumn wave as anything but banned. “The probability that we won’t have a new variant in the fall is very low,” said the SPD politician. The virus continues to evolve. Lauterbach fears a “recombined” variant that combines characteristics of different variants, such as resistance to vaccinations from Omikron and the danger of the Delta variant. The whole interview with Lauterbach can be seen on Tuesday evening at 10:15 p.m. in a ten-minute and then half-hour edition of “RTL Direkt”.
For Lauterbach, the outstanding tool in the current fight against the pandemic and in particular against serious illnesses after an infection remains the booster vaccination. “If you have been vaccinated three times – you have the booster vaccination and two basic vaccinations – then you are not only very well protected against omicron, then you are probably also well protected against a variant that would come in the autumn.”
With regard to the upcoming federal-state conference at the beginning of next week, Lauterbach explained that he was in favor of introducing further incentives for booster vaccinations. “You could go further than that.” As an incentive that has been effective so far, he described the measure of exempting those who have been boosted from quarantine or from being tested when entering restaurants or bars. According to Lauterbach, we have to think further in this direction.
When it comes to death threats, Lauterbach gets personal
In an interview with Pinar Atalay, Lauterbach also gave insights into how he deals with personal attacks, including death threats. “It has reached a point where it’s uncomfortable,” said the 58-year-old. After receiving a lot of threats and death threats, he “caught himself for the first time today” that he had not typically forwarded them and reported them “for a long time” but “simply didn’t do it”. The reason he gave was the focus on his work and the upcoming prime ministerial conference. However, there is no all-clear for the Hetzer. “Maybe my team did it,” said Lauterbach.