The omicron variant of the corona virus has a firm grip on Germany. At the same time, the end of the Corona measures is being considered. However, there is not yet a mandatory vaccination that may be necessary. The talk show with Anne Will on Sunday evening is about how things will continue.
As far as the corona pandemic is concerned, we have another exciting week ahead of us. First of all, the prime ministers of the federal states will meet with Chancellor Olaf Scholz this Monday. Two of the topics: Prioritization of PCR tests and the question of a scenario for the end of the corona crisis. The health ministers of the federal and state governments should think about this.
It is already known that there will probably be no tightening of the current corona measures, but no relaxation either. On Wednesday afternoon, the Bundestag will discuss for the first time whether there should be compulsory vaccination and how exactly it can be designed. Among other things, it will be discussed whether vaccination should be compulsory for all adults or initially only for people over 50. There is no voting this week.
The talk show Anne Will in the first Sunday evening was mainly about the subject of compulsory vaccination. The guests know that this is particularly important in the event of possible corona waves that are still to be expected. Also Chief Physician Uwe Janssens from Eschweiler in North Rhine-Westphalia. Like Health Minister Karl Lauterbach before him, he can imagine that we will have more than 200,000 infected people a day in the next few weeks. The peak could be reached in mid-February, then these numbers could go down again. Since the current Omikron variant is weaker than its predecessors, Janssens assumes that the normal wards will be subjected to greater stress. However, his main concern is that healthcare workers will become infected.
Digitization at carrier pigeon level
For the Chair of the Ethics Council, Alena Buyx, it is clear: “We are going into a shaky phase.” The main reason for this is that we don’t have enough reliable data for research. “We still don’t know exactly where people get infected. When it comes to digitization in healthcare, we have to get better.”
The North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst from the CDU agrees. “We’ve been waiting for the electronic health card since 2003,” he complains and hopes: “Corona may create the necessary pressure.”
Later in the program, the doctor Janssens becomes concrete. Addressing talk guest Marco Buschmann, he demands: “You have to do everything to lift this digital grave so that we can do something with the digital data of the patients. We have no information, we have nothing. What we have had in the last year and a half have was better carrier pigeon level. We have a treasure trove of data that must finally be lifted.”
Federal Minister of Justice Buschmann sees it similarly. However, he points out that data can already be used for research if they are anonymized.
Then Buschmann comes to the main topic: the discussion about compulsory vaccination. Compulsory vaccination is important to get out of the crisis. “I think there is a deep longing for normality,” says Buschmann.
“Reject the word ‘push’
But Anne Will and FAZ journalist Helene Bubrowski won’t leave him alone. The latter criticizes the traffic light government and its decision not to submit its own application in the Bundestag discussion on compulsory vaccination. “None of this is a coherent picture and not what fuels confidence in the solution to the crisis,” she says. Buschmann points out that such a procedure, as currently planned, was also used for other medical-ethical questions.
Now Anne Will steps in and asks specifically why the government is “dodging its own application.” “I reject the word ‘press’,” counters Buschmann, slightly annoyed. The government deliberately chose the way that members of the Bundestag can submit group applications across party lines, “because we notice how much society is driven by the decision.” At the same time, he makes it clear that the obligation to vaccinate must be designed in such a way that it can be implemented in the summer.
That now drives physicians Janssens upset. The process is taking too long for him. “You managed to get vaccinations for hospital staff on the same day in the Bundestag and Bundesrat. How do you think they feel now? From mid-March I have people who may not be able to come. They still have not specified at all how it should work. The employees are really cold, especially those who have been vaccinated. They usually care for unvaccinated people on the beds in the intensive care units from morning to evening, and they ask why people are pointing fingers at them now .”
With another thought, Wüst brings calm back into the discussion. He asks what would happen if there were no compulsory vaccinations. Then next winter we would have to discuss restrictions in gastronomy and retail again, parents would have to ask themselves again whether they could safely send their children to daycare or school. “All the pressure in society would be back, and that’s why we have to face this discussion.”
Wüst himself is in favor of a general obligation to vaccinate. “Now it’s the turn of those who have refused so far, so that we can all get some normalcy again.”
“Let’s Raise the Treasure”
Buschmann thinks the debate is important, but wonders whether it really has to be a general obligation to vaccinate, or whether one can start with an age-related obligation to vaccinate. “When I look at the papers of the Federal Government’s Expert Council, there are many recommendations that point in this direction.” Unvaccinated over 50s are currently the biggest burden on the health system. “According to the current state of the files, there are stronger arguments for compulsory vaccination from the age of 50 than for general compulsory vaccination.”
But who should check compliance with the vaccination requirement. Wüst is clear: the municipal regulatory and health authorities have to take over this.
But Janssens makes a surprising suggestion: “Why should the municipalities do this, they’re already overburdened anyway? Why don’t we treasure the fact that every patient has health insurance?” His idea: if a patient is vaccinated, there is a message to the health insurance company, which then forwards this information.