In the case of corona crisis management, it could help to offer citizen tests free of charge again.
(Photo: imago images / Future Image)
Crises need clear responsibilities. Otherwise there will be chaos. If there is a fire, the fire brigade takes care of it. In the event of a robbery, the police. And if you have a heart attack, the ambulance comes. In the corona crisis, the executive federal government, the traffic light parties and prime ministers play the fire brigade, police and ambulance at the same time.
As you would expect, there is chaos. The number of new infections and the seven-day incidence are higher than ever, and winter has not yet started.
In some places, clinics are already reaching their limits – despite the vaccine, despite tried and tested measures and although the clinics are in a well-trained state with the experience of the previous waves. How can that be?
Weeks ago there should have been clear decisions. Even the mere expressions of will that the health ministers have now submitted are not enough. There is talk of more booster vaccinations – and of protecting nursing homes with more tests.
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However, one looks in vain for a concrete plan of how this can be achieved. 30 million people will have to be vaccinated a third time by the end of the year. 30 million! That’s around 550,000 people a day, not counting the first and second vaccinations.
Scandal: Unvaccinated nursing staff
German doctors are currently vaccinating just under a quarter of them. The vaccination centers urgently need to be ramped up, even if it costs money. This is the only way to create the booster campaign.
The situation in the nursing homes is dramatic. Cases like in Brandenburg, where eleven people died in an accommodation in which half of the employees were unvaccinated, leave one stunned. In nursing homes and hospitals, staff and guests must be tested daily. And if that does not stop the dying of the weakest, then there needs to be a compulsory vaccination in these areas.
It is a scandal that unvaccinated personnel are allowed to treat people who are likely to be fatally infected. In addition, there must be free citizen tests again.
(Photo: Kostas Koufogiorgos)
The only question is who should actually implement these measures. The traffic light parties are working on an alternative to end the epidemic situation. Constitutional lawyers may be delighted. The pandemic fight, however, does not advance an inch, and may even be thrown back.
The traffic light parties also do not agree on key issues. While the Greens have been seeing job-related compulsory vaccinations as a possible instrument against dying in nursing homes for months, the FDP strictly rejects this. The Liberals are similarly critical of the 2G rule, while the SPD and the Greens are campaigning for it.
Disagreement over the federal-state summit
The prime ministers? They cannot even agree on whether or not they have to meet for a federal-state summit. It would at least be appropriate to set a common course in the pandemic. Nobody can understand the patchwork of 16 different corona ordinances in 16 different federal states.
And the caretaker government? She puts the blame on the traffic light groups, criticizes the end of the epidemic situation, although the initiative originally came from Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU).
As a reminder, this government has already unpacked money bazookas and vaccinated a million people a day at the top. The corona policy was never in a particularly urgent hurry in Germany, but it was shaped by unity and it was also capable of acting.
Not even that still holds true. These are terrible omen for winter.
More: RKI registers 15,513 new corona infections – the incidence continues to rise to 201.1