With crude theses about the corona vaccination and Long Covid, the “Left” politician Sahra Wagenknecht has annoyed not only SPD health politician Karl Lauterbach at “Anne Will”.
From Andrea Zschocher
Whether Sahra Wagenknecht regretted her commitment to “Anne Will” after the show? Unclear, probably the politician is convinced that she is right, after all, she had (self-selected) studies in her luggage and a third of Germans who like They are just not vaccinated. That their party “Die Linke” regrets the commitment to the show, on the other hand, is quite likely. Because what Wagenknecht spread there on the verge of the conspiracy myths in the show is likely to damage the party in the long term. With the program topic “Rising new infections, concern about vaccine skepticism – does more pressure on unvaccinated people help or harm?”, An exchange of blows was to be expected, but so much head shaking on a political talk show was rare.
Guests at “Anne Will” were:
Sahra Wagenknecht(Die Linke), member of the German Bundestag
Christina Berndt, Science editor at the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”
Karl Lauterbach(SPD), member of the German Bundestag, epidemiologist
Marco Buschmann (FDP), First Parliamentary Managing Director of the Bundestag parliamentary group
Not everything that Sahra Wagenknecht said in the rather small group was completely wrong. Of course, it is problematic when everyone has to explain publicly why he or she is (not) vaccinated. And it is also true that it is a very individual decision whether to do this or not. It is also true that the health care system has been economized on and on for many years. Much else that evening was, to quote Karl Lauterbach, “simply wrong.” Wagenknecht claimed, for example, that the act of vaccination, which is always touted as a measure of solidarity, was actually a selfish step To hear someone whose party has been complaining about a lack of solidarity for many years: Wagenknecht’s crude explanation for her completely wrong thesis: A vaccination only protects yourself from infection.
Who should be vaccinated?
She also referred to studies that had shown that the viral load is also high in people who have been vaccinated and that is why others are not protected by the vaccination. That vaccination helps society as a whole, because fewer people become seriously ill, Wagenknecht did not want to follow this logic. She insisted on her point of view that in principle young people (she spoke of 30-year-olds) would not have any major problems due to a corona infection and ignored the fact that it is currently precisely these unvaccinated 30-year-olds who are also in intensive care units. And they lie there significantly longer than older citizens: inside, because as sad and harsh as that sounds, younger bodies tend to struggle longer to survive than the very old. The mentioned study by Sahra Wagenknecht from Great Britain, as Christina Berndt explained, examined how great the infection is also among vaccinated people in the family environment. Now we are not all related to each other and belong to the same household, which is why a vaccination would be worthwhile.
Wagenknecht is afraid of Corona – but also of the vaccination
Marco Buschmann referred to vaccination as an “individual decision” and continues to rely on education, but also campaigned for talking to vaccine skeptics. Talking to these people from above would not help, at the same time he admitted that he was convinced of it to be that Sahra Wagenknecht is “wrong”.
The politician admitted, “I am also afraid of Corona”, but the concerns about the “new vaccines” are greater. In the case of a vaccination with a deadly vaccine, as it is probably currently being tested in China, she would possibly be vaccinated if there is a “serious approval by the EU”. The approval for the currently inoculated mRNA vaccines is not enough for her For Wagenknecht, the target group of the corona vaccination is generally very narrow, she believes that they only really need risk groups.
“They tell nonsense”
Anyone who says that also says that Long Covid does not exist. The left-wing politician said “Long Covid is controversial”, although there is actually agreement that this secondary disease extremely restricts people in their lives. Even Anne Will pointed out that she knows people who suffered from Long Covid. Wagenknecht nodded, yes, too she knew of people who were not doing well for a few months, but now everything is fine again. “You shouldn’t throw alarmist numbers around”, she rebelled at Karl Lauterbach, who repeatedly corrected Wagenknecht’s remarks .
“You tell nonsense,” he rebuked her and refuted her arguments one by one. The fact that he doesn’t just get to the point of saying: I don’t feel like it anymore is to be given credit for. Lauterbach is often considered too fatalistic by many perceived as a black painter. But it seems as if it takes a thick skin and the will to educate people to get through the pandemic and maybe get some people to be vaccinated. He accused Wagenknecht of telling “robber pistols” and pointed out that he could not simply leave her amateur medical explanations unexplained. For example, it is quite normal for the state to be liable for the vaccination instead of the manufacturer if the state recommends it to its citizens. A doubt about the contracts, which exclude the liability of the manufacturer, is not appropriate, the vaccination is safe.
The intensive care units are full
It became polemical at the latest at the moment when Sahra Wagenknecht wanted to see a connection between the bed reduction in clinics with Corona, which had been advancing for years. She said that Corona must now be part of our everyday reality and that the health system must not be so ruined that it can no longer deal with “normal diseases of an 80 million population.” That wages as well as equipment and working conditions in nursing are massive need to be improved is completely beyond dispute, but journalist Berndt was astonished by Sahra Wagenknecht’s “shifted risk perception”. “They pretend that the beds are being dismantled to worsen the situation,” but that would not be the case anywhere. But it is true that in many places beds have to be kept free for people with Covid and that the intensive care units are sometimes reaching their limits.
Further topics:
- 2G and booster vaccinations While Marco Buschmann considers 2G to be “a far too overrated instrument”, Karl Lauterbach urged it. In the end, he admitted almost snippily, it would also protect Sahra Wagenknecht from being infected by vaccinated people if they simply stopped using it Space with them.
- Nobody said Freedomday Marco Buschmann described in great detail that the SPD, Greens and FDP had not decided to end all measures, but that masks and tests would still apply after March 2022. He did not allow criticism of his choice of words. Coalition partner Lauterbach from the SPD had to row back on this point after a tweet on the subject at Anne Will.
This “Anne Will” broadcast was special, because even if Sahra Wagenknecht explicitly emphasized that she was not against a corona vaccination, that Will offered her such a platform for alternative truths and studies, that was terrifying. “You can Unvaccinated people are not left to their own devices, ”said Karl Lauterbach. What also didn’t play a role in this talk show were those that cannot be vaccinated at all. Because children up to the age of 12 depend on as many people as possible to vaccinate themselves in order to generate herd immunity. The fact that those who were so in solidarity with society last year are now experiencing how the vaccination comes to a standstill might be worth a show. Then gladly without Sahra Wagenknecht.