Thursday, November 18, 2021
Wieler and Lauterbach near Lanz
“The new 3G: vaccinated, recovered or died”
By Marko Schlichting
The Bundestag wants to decide today on the end of the epidemic emergency of national scope. The Federal Council will meet on Friday. What politics should do now is actually clear, say RKI boss Wieler and SPD health expert Lauterbach. So far it has been far too little, complains an intensive care nurse at Lanz.
The corona situation is more dramatic than ever. In all parts of Germany, the number of new infections is rising steeply. The health system threatens to collapse. Meanwhile, the Bundestag is meeting today. A special session will discuss the end of the epidemic emergency of national importance. After that he will presumably decide with a majority of the three traffic light parties. This means that in the future the federal and state governments will no longer be able to issue binding regulations for the fight against Corona. The parliaments should be responsible for this again from November 25th.
But what options are there to contain the current crisis? Politicians and other experts commented on this in the evening. And that with three discussions. Your answer: vaccination and 2G.
Incendiary speech by the RKI boss
The head of the Robert Koch Institute, Lothar Wieler, found the clearest words of the evening in an online discussion event with the Saxon Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer from the CDU. There Wieler vented his anger in an angry speech. “We will have a very bad Christmas if we don’t take countermeasures now,” said the RKI boss. The number of new infections is constantly increasing. At the moment it is officially 50,000, but add the probable number of unreported cases, be it twice or three times as high. The SPD health politician Karl Lauterbach also spoke to Markus Lanz on ZDF of around 100,000 new infections per day. Trend for the next few weeks: “I know that the number of new infections will not decrease.”
The situation in the hospitals is also getting worse and worse, according to Wieler. “We have never been as worried as we are now,” he said. “We are at the limit in the intensive care units,” complained the intensive care nurse Ralf Berning to Lanz. There are 21,000 intensive care beds nationwide. That is 6,300 beds less than a year ago. Reason: the lack of nurses. Berning, who works in a hospital in Bielefeld: “We have 16 beds on our ward, but we can only use ten of them. The others are locked. We could put them into operation, but we don’t have enough staff.”
More and more nurses fled from the service, so Berning. It is correct: there have never been so many nurses in training, but never before have so many abandoned their training. With a view to politics, Berning said: “Only lip service is paid, otherwise nothing happens.” His conclusion: “If we don’t act now, we will soon no longer have to talk about 2G, but rather 3G: vaccinated, recovered or died.”
Wieler for vaccinations in pharmacies
The RKI made very clear recommendations for action at an early stage, said Lothar Wieler. As early as the end of July, the institute warned that the fourth wave could significantly outperform all previous waves if the vaccination rate did not increase significantly. Karl Lauterbach also confirmed this on ZDF and explained that the current Delta variant of the virus is six times more contagious than the original variant. That is why there are more infections in a third of those who have not been vaccinated than in the whole population a year ago, when there was still no vaccine. “But the vaccination is great for everyone who is vaccinated,” he said.
That’s why Lauterbach and Wieler want more people to be vaccinated. At least Lauterbach is careful about a general vaccination requirement. At least it wouldn’t help fight the fourth wave. However, Lauterbach seems to be worried about a fifth wave, even if he did not address it directly on Wednesday evening.
In the opinion of RKI boss Wieler, vaccinations should also be carried out in pharmacies in the future in order to increase the vaccination rate. “Every man and mouse who can vaccinate should kindly vaccinate now, otherwise we will not get this situation under control,” said the scientist.
Nationwide 2G rule
Wieler also called for the urgent introduction of the nationwide 2G rule. And that’s why he’s not only met with open ears from Karl Lauterbach. The Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder also spoke out in favor of it on the ARD talk show Maischberger – and has already introduced it in Bavaria. On Thursday afternoon, she could resolve the Prime Minister’s Conference. At the same time, Söder suggested that Christmas markets either be banned entirely or that a mask requirement and a ban on alcohol be made there. He thinks contact restrictions for unvaccinated people over Christmas make sense, and he wants football players to adhere to the 2G obligation in the stadium. “There is a moral compulsory vaccination for everyone to protect themselves and the neighbors,” he said in the ARD.
“Go straight to the iron”
Finally, Karl Lauterbach pointed out that as many people as possible urgently need a booster vaccination. This could have been started much earlier, because they already knew in July that a third vaccination would be necessary. In order to prevent chaos, one should first start with the third vaccination in old people. Lauterbach demanded that the vaccination centers be restarted as soon as possible. The vaccine for the booster vaccinations is there. Lauterbach: “Now we have to go really hard and do it!”