One of the worst things in the life of a politician is public defeat: you don’t just lose, everyone watches you lose. They observe whether the traces of defeat manifest themselves somewhere, perhaps in dark circles under the eyes or a crooked parting.
Karl Lauterbach is sitting in the federal press conference in Berlin on Friday morning, there’s no other way, the date was already set: the Federal Minister of Health informed about the Corona situation, as on countless other Fridays since the beginning of the pandemic. Lothar Wieler, head of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), is sitting next to him, and the chairman of the Association of Intensive Care Doctors, Gernot Marx, is also there.
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The minister, Scheitel rather mediocre, doesn’t talk long about the matter. That Failure of compulsory vaccination in the Bundestag Less than 24 hours earlier it was “a clear and also bitter defeat”. He had hoped that the situation would be different in the fall than it would be now. What follows from this? “We will probably not be optimally prepared for the third time in the autumn that is to be expected.”
Of course, nobody knows for sure whether the wave will really come and which virus variant will then be involved, but most experts assume that new waves of the pandemic are to be expected. In autumn, probably already in summer. The conditions for the emergence of new virus variants are ideal, says Lauterbach: the number of cases is high, and different variants are already circulating that could recombine. “In any case, a wave is to be expected, that’s my view of things.”
In sight: the comeback of the mask requirement
Therefore, one can be prepared for the fact that stricter measures will be needed again in autumn. When the current Infection Protection Act – which largely ended all nationwide measures – expires in September, you will definitely have to “do it again”. Translated, this means: Lauterbach predicts the comeback of the mask requirement. Without compulsory vaccination, there will be no other way. And even now the scope for further easing is exhausted. Germany will no longer be more relaxed than it is now without compulsory vaccination, that is the message.
Overall, Lauterbach says: “It was a bad week.” He means: It was a bad week for protecting the population from the virus. And he means the medical staff in the hospitals, the people with previous illnesses who could not optimally protect themselves with a vaccination, he means future deaths “that we could have prevented”. But of course it was also a catastrophic week for the politician Lauterbach: At the beginning of the week that Back and forth with the quarantine requirement, a retreat on Twitter at half past two in the night, an admission of error by Markus Lanz. Then the failure of compulsory vaccination.
Still, there’s good news too. RKI boss Wieler announces that the peak of the current wave has been overcome, on Friday morning the seven-day incidence is 1187.2 – two weeks ago this parameter was well over 1900. Nevertheless: 334 deaths within 24 hours are in the Statistics. The intensive care doctor Marx says that the situation in the hospitals is currently manageable, but that many operations have to be postponed because there are a lot of staff shortages due to the corona.
Lauterbach continues – as a doctor you shouldn’t leave anything untried, he says
The question remains whether things can still be turned around. After the vote on Thursday, the FDP let it be known that one could talk again if the situation in autumn was different than it is now. And Lauterbach himself said immediately after the failure of the compulsory vaccination law that you had to talk again. But a few hours later, Chancellor Olaf Scholz had signaled that he had no desire to start again with compulsory vaccination. And after one night Lauterbach seems to submit to fate, at least almost. He was not optimistic that new talks with the Union could lead to different results, after all they had been talking for months. In addition, it was “a clear, bitter defeat”, “which makes it very unlikely that anything will change here on this scale”.
Nevertheless, one should never refuse to talk. As a doctor, you shouldn’t leave anything untried when it comes to someone’s life, says Lauterbach, you always have to fight to the end. That also applies to politicians when they make decisions that “ultimately affect people’s lives”.