Olaf Scholz holds back with corona restrictions.
(Photo: dpa)
This federal-state summit leaves you at a loss. Alarming words are basically opposed to lax decisions. At the press conference, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) warned of a “towering wave of omicons” that one should not turn a blind eye to.
Corona do not take a Christmas break. And soon a fifth wave threatens. Scholz referred to countries like Denmark, the USA and Great Britain, where the new variant is spreading rapidly.
That sounds worrying. It is even more worrying, however, that the measures adopted by the federal and state governments do not fit the situation described. They should not come into force as soon as possible, as the Federal Government’s Commission of Experts had recommended, but no later than December 28th, i.e. in a week. And measures were decided that only a tiny part of the population has to worry about – namely club and stadium-goers as well as guests at parties with more than ten participants.
That seems like window dressing compared to what the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) thinks is necessary. The institute recommends “maximum contact restrictions” with immediate effect, restaurants should close immediately and the Christmas holidays for daycare centers and schools should be extended.
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Apparently the RKI published these recommendations without consulting the federal government. There is no mention of such far-reaching measures in the opinion of the Expert Council. But what does it actually say about fighting a pandemic if the top expert institute considers a completely different course to be necessary than the federal and state governments have now decided? And what course do you think it is necessary to continue with the mild measures that have now been decided on for a few more weeks?
The signal that reaches the population is fatal. Politics is sounding the alarm and leaving you with the uneasy feeling that you are not acting adequately. This is exacerbated by the fact that individual federal states also consider a significantly tougher course to be necessary.
Occasional federal states rush forward
In Hamburg, for example, the measures already apply over Christmas, and the Hanseatic city is also introducing a curfew. And Baden-Württemberg let it be noted in a protocol statement that the resolutions of Tuesday did not go far enough.
All measures that were in place before the epidemic ended – basically all measures for a nationwide lockdown, such as the one that the Netherlands decided against Omikron, but which currently has no legal basis. Countries like Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia also share this view – and are therefore essentially at odds with the traffic light government, which has let the epidemic situation run out.
None of this sounds like unity – and bodes well for the coming weeks.
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