At the end of his film, the doctor Eckart von Hirschhausen trudges with a Covid survivor in the 11 degrees Celsius cold Baltic Sea off Heiligendamm, upper body free. Simply because it works. A song is playing in the background – “… we gotta get away from here”. This sets the tone. After “Hirschhausen in the intensive care unit” and “Hirschhausen as a vaccine test person”, this depressing film about long-covid patients is called: “Hirschhausen – Corona without end?” It will be broadcast on this Monday evening before Plasberg’s ARD talk show “hard but fair”. Plasberg takes the title very directly into its broadcast. “Corona and no end: How big is the entire damage?” Is the name of the issue in which Hirschhausen can also answer questions – in a shirt and jacket, however.
The pandemic, that is the sober approach of moderator Frank Plasberg, has consequences for society far beyond the question of how high the vaccination rate is currently and where and how many operational intensive care beds are available. Because the self-defense is already so exhausting, it sometimes really gets out of sight: That the big huge garbage Corona leads to many more big huge garbage. The production of 50 Shades of Weh is already in full swing.
In addition to the deplorable number of deaths – not only in Germany – there are, says Plasberg, “people who were killed by Corona even though they survived”. That’s what the Hirschhausen documentary was about, and that’s what the intensive care doctor Uwe Janssens is now about. Long Covid is a “huge problem that has not yet been precisely defined”, but which at least receives the necessary attention from the medical community. What is behind that after well-groomed ScrabbleAn entry in the show’s guest book shows that boredom-sounding word can actually hide long-term consequences – an employee greets them there from his first day of work: after 43 weeks of failure.
Janssens reports of people who are “severely marked”, “immobilized” and so on. And those who have not been physically caught by the virus can suffer mentally and emotionally from the consequences of the pandemic, which has been going on for almost two years. The journalist Katharina Hamberger reminds us that there is a lack of specialized facilities to deal with long covid as well as psychotherapy.
Corona, the “fucking enemy”
There are also long-term consequences for business and economics. The star chef Nelson Müller has to cope with the second canceled Christmas business in a row, his customers are insecure, long-term planning, which is also so important for demand and workforce management, is basically not possible. The Kassensturz von Hirschhausen seems even further away emotionally, but this is not wrong. The millions and billions of billions piling up as a result of the Corona, for example in loss of earnings, not only cools the consumer climate, it is also missing in the pension fund. The word of a patient applies, of whom Hirschhausen reported and whom Corona called a “fucking enemy”.
After all, the personality of the day ensures that everyone is happy. In Karl Lauterbach, “the coronavirus got its fearsome opponent today,” says Plasberg and wants to know from all guests 9/11 wise where they were when Lauterbach was named. Uwe Janssens even knows the time (seven to 10 a.m.) while Bremen’s SPD Mayor Andreas Bovenschulte is already setting out to measure the task: It is very clear that even Karl Lauterbach cannot magic away the virus, but he is “that.” The best that can happen to us “, now there is an opportunity to” come to terms with the situation “politically.
This opens the door to the last big bad-mood chunk of this really moral group, the question of a general compulsory vaccination. The usual arguments fly through the studio, but a real highlight is waiting in the clip on the topic. In it, a woman is interviewed whose pleasure cannot be hidden even by the well-fitting FFP2 mask. Apparently she has been vaccinated for a long time, but her husband has not been vaccinated for a long time. Now his car is in the workshop and 3G is being checked in the subway. The wife had apparently persuaded her husband for a long time that he did not want to listen, now he is freezing in the vaccination queue. The reporter asks whether she thinks that is a good thing, and the respondents’ eyes light up – and then all she says is: “You have to listen to women!”
Cornelius Pollmer loves Helmut Dietl’s film “Late Show”, especially its last scene. In a talk show hosted by Thomas Gottschalk, the group goes through German television. For him, the best thing about it are “animal films anyway”, stated one guest – and Veronica Ferres, sitting opposite, confirms, “They are so human!”