Corona pandemic: Söder calls vaccination “only chance”

The calls for mandatory vaccination are increasing. It is “the only chance to get out of this endless loop,” said CSU boss Söder in Report from Berlin. In the meantime, even parts of the Left Party are calling for a general vaccination requirement.

The number of new infections with the coronavirus continues to rise, and now there is also the new Omikron variant: In view of this development, more and more politicians from different parties are in favor of a general vaccination requirement. Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder said in Report from Berlin: “At the beginning I was skeptical about the general compulsory vaccination because it essentially contradicts my liberal understanding of the state. But the only chance to get out of this endless loop is a compulsory vaccination.”

Söder further argued that in this way the division of society could be ended and the refusal to vaccinate could be broken. “Because once it has been decided, it will be enforced. Then there will also be fines, and in the end most of them will be vaccinated,” said the CSU chief. He is firmly convinced of that. “Only one decision has to be made: the longer politics hesitates, the greater the division in society.” In the past there have already been a few cases where fines have had an effect: for example, when seat belts are compulsory in cars.

Because: “New location thanks to the Omikron variant”

Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil from the SPD had previously spoken out in favor of a general vaccination requirement. With the Omikron variant of the corona virus, there is a new situation, he told the “Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung”. “We will have to make a massive effort to increase vaccination protection very quickly,” said Weil. “Initial studies show that booster vaccinations, in particular, can have a good effect against this mutation. This is why a general vaccination requirement is now absolutely essential. We absolutely have to increase the vaccination pressure.”

According to Weil, vaccination will probably be required for a few years. “Even if no politician likes to do that: We must also oblige people to have regular booster vaccinations,” said the head of government of the newspaper.

The prospective Minister of Agriculture, Cem Özdemir of the Greens, was also open to compulsory vaccination. “The taboo compulsory vaccination can not be a taboo,” he said in the Deutschlandfunk. To those who do not want to be vaccinated, he said, freedom also goes hand in hand with responsibility. “We will not allow those who behave in a disciplined manner, who believe in science, who do not believe that the earth is flat, to continue to suffer from those who believe that they have special rights.”

Also left party for compulsory vaccination

Even from the Left Party there were calls for a general vaccination requirement. Party leader Susanne Hennig-Wellsow spoke out in favor of this together with other representatives of the party in an article published by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. It is about a “sanctioned instrument”, says the article, about which the Berlin “taz” reported. However, the party spoke out against enforcing the compulsory vaccination with the help of physical violence. Rather, she sees the measure as “an unavoidable ultima ratio for dealing with the pandemic.”

So far, the Left Party had not spoken out in favor of a general compulsory vaccination. The Bundestag member Christian Görke had proposed a vaccination premium of 500 euros. The former left parliamentary group leader Sahra Wagenknecht, on the other hand, personally refuses a vaccination, but in turn meets with opposition from the party leadership.

The parties of the new traffic light government – SPD, Greens and FDP – are currently only discussing compulsory vaccination against Corona for certain professional groups. The acting Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil from the SPD announced that he wanted to implement mandatory vaccinations for employees in clinics and homes before Christmas.