Bavaria, Bavaria of all places. The country whose prime minister is so often the toughest fighter against Corona. The country from which one likes to look somewhat disparagingly at the federal states in the north. And now the corona card is dark red here – how can that be?
Take the district of Miesbach. Schliersee, Tegernsee, alpine pastures, huts. For days, the corona incidence there was over 700, the highest in Germany. Now it is already at 875, surpassed only by the districts of Rottal-Inn, Traunstein, Dingolfing-Landau. The hospital traffic light has now turned red, which means that more than 80 percent of the intensive care beds are occupied. The district and the neighbors in Rosenheim organize their rescue services together; If you add the two together, it is as much as 98 percent of the beds. The situation is out of control, it says in the district office. The chains of infection can no longer be traced, the health department is now doing what Markus Söder’s state government recommended: damage limitation. In other words, only the household members of those affected are contacted – it is no longer possible to follow up on further contacts.
What led to this situation? The Miesbachers tried to analyze it, but didn’t get very far. There are officially no outbreak hotspots. The vaccination rate of the 100,000 inhabitants is 63 percent, which is not particularly high, but significantly more than next door in Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen, where it is only 58 percent. The schools are also not considered hotspots. Of the 12,000 schoolchildren in the district, around 90 were last infected, and that with regular tests.
Some people went to parties with a bizarre hope
Perhaps the most important factor is: carelessness – a considerable part of it brought back from a summer in which a lot was possible. Weddings were allowed to take place, but in some cases this ended up in quarantine for the celebrants and the bride and groom. And what one knows in clubs or fire brigades, but would never report to an authority: There were often larger, private barn parties. These were also visited by infected people, the consequences were fatal: rows of young, sometimes seriously ill.
Stories of corona parties are also making the rounds, at which the participants specifically wanted to get infected – to avoid the vaccination and then to get the “G” for “recovered” after two weeks of quarantine; the free pass for visits to restaurants and bars or trips to the ski areas in the near future. Speaking of restaurants: Checking the currently valid G rule is not taken too seriously in the region. In the district office, too, it has been found that there is an overly high level of trust in the honesty of the guests – and that now that one can be certain that if someone becomes infected, he or she will infect all other unvaccinated members of the household one hundred percent.
It may be understandable that after almost two years the pandemic is being celebrated; in Miesbach as everywhere in the republic. But now everything comes together: bar festivals, skepticism about vaccinations, excessive trust in one’s own, supposedly healthy lifestyle. Where is this going? Into the overload of the clinics? In the next bans? Direction of compulsory vaccination? The Miesbacher Landratsamt is currently trying to appeal – to personal responsibility and responsibility towards fellow human beings. It is a surrender to unreason.