“Hard but fair”: A cool professor puts Dreyer in trouble – media

Hard to believe, but you can actually learn something from a Corona talk show. For example this: historians can be pretty cool socks.

So there it says Professor Dr. Malte Thießen, who has researched the history of compulsory vaccination, in the obtrusively red decorated studio of “Hart aber fair” and throws the show almost all alone. Moderator Frank Plasberg clearly enjoys this man. The professor with the cheeky quiff brought a caricature from 1802 with him, which illustrated the fear at the time of the side effects of smallpox vaccinations: the vaccinates grew bumps from which whole cows hatched. So Thießen makes fun of opponents of vaccination – and yet he thinks little of compulsory corona vaccination.

Firstly, the professor reports, a state-mandated obligation would mobilize those opposed to vaccination and scare off people who are afraid of needles. Second, these people would rather pay fines than cave in. Third, as far as vaccination cards are concerned, counterfeiting will flourish. And fourthly, the obligation to vaccinate is an expression of a culture of distrust that does not suit Germany. His thesis: “The obligation to vaccinate is always a test case for the trustworthiness of political institutions.” And so politics has the floor.

The Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Malu Dreyer, is in the studio for the SPD, while Christine Aschenberg-Dugnus, member of the Bundestag, holds the fort for the FDP. SPD and FDP, you can already guess the problem: the traffic light sends out different signals.

Dreyer fears “total uprising” in society

The social democrat Dreyer is in a particularly difficult position. She fears a “total uprising” in society” should one be forced to restrict freedom rights again in the fall. Although she was strictly against compulsory vaccination a few months ago, she now considers this to be the last Chance to achieve the necessary basic immunization The epidemiologist Timo Ulrichs assists her: The “Bratwurst” as an incentive to vaccinate was obviously not enough.

Of course, the Liberal Aschenberg-Dugnus believes beyond sausages in people’s ability to understand. At her side she knows the journalist Michael Bröcker. The two fear that in the current phase of the pandemic, when many people consider the seemingly harmless omicron variant to be an alternative to vaccination and nobody knows which vaccine will protect against which variant in the fall, compulsory vaccination will do more harm than good.

In order to keep the peace of the coalition, Dreyer and Aschenberg-Dugnus flee together into cloudy spheres. Dreyer claims that it is the “supreme discipline of democracy” when the Bundestag takes the lead in such a difficult ethical question; Aschenberg-Dugnus claims that people would be happy to listen to such a three-hour orientation debate in parliament. You don’t have to be particularly sarcastic to think that’s a cheap excuse. Chancellor Olaf Scholz does not have the coalition under control on this point.

Another lesson from this talk show: If you want to organize majorities for general vaccination, you have to show political leadership. First second Third Fourth. And quickly, before the omicron wave ebbs.