Praise is fleeting. Especially that from Karl Lauterbach, which goes bad faster than raw hack. On Friday, the SPD politician lifted his hat on Twitter to the repentant actor Jan Josef Liefers (“Chapeau!”) Because he was helping as an intern on a corona ward in the hospital. A Picture TV-Interview with persistent lack of understanding about the corona policy later, Lauterbach takes everything back and sends the actor back to Saul’s corner: “He didn’t learn anything.” Both of them sit across from each other at Maybrit Illner’s that evening to talk to the virologist Klaus Stöhr and Ute Teichert, chairwoman of the Federal Association for Doctors in the Public Health Service, on the program motto “Vaccinated, tested, annoyed – dare more freedom?” to discuss. But the date until which the corona restrictions are still valid cannot be found at the end of the program. Just as little as the answer to what exactly an actor should do in the group.
It starts with the report from the Robert Koch Institute, according to which the rate of vaccinated adults should be up to five percent higher than previously assumed. According to this, up to 84 percent should have already received the first vaccination. The group cursed reflexively, Lauterbach counts mistakes in the vaccination registration, the virologist Stöhr denounces the “data wasteland” Germany and Maybrit Illner’s “Jan Josef” announces: “Fear makes us uncreative”. And manages the trick of warning against conspiracy theories and one sentence later to speak about this vaccination, “about which crazy stories are circulating on the Internet”.
Maybrit Illner dares to throw euphoria into the bad-tempered society, asking whether this is actually good news, that more people are immune than you thought. After all, a collage of vaccination doses and the hashtag #Freedomday shines in the studio background, only a little corner of the coronavirus ball points into the picture at the edge. “Shouldn’t we be happy?”, She asks Karl Lauterbach, who says dejectedly: “Of course.” However, the difference to the assumed quota is not so great and in the direction of whining actors he warns: “We are still not there.”
The rest of the show is a lost search for the right time. Is Freedom Day coming in Germany as it was celebrated in Denmark with an adult vaccination rate of 75 percent? And if so, when? Ute Teichert does not want to take part in the search, a border is “arbitrary”, the discussion about a Freedom Day is not right. And tears up all the calendar pages with the sentence biting his tail: “We have to bridge the time that we still have ahead of us.”
Lauterbach dampens the longings of the delivery person snapping at the sausage, but with “ideally 95 percent or more than 90” he at least agrees with a specific number. In contrast to Klaus Stöhr, who, as an opponent of the SPD health politician, warns of the “feeling of fear” in society. “At some point” you have to return to normal. His gaze wanders towards eternity when he talks about vaccination for children and states: “As long as we can remember, the virus will circulate.”
The fact that Karl Lauterbach previously explained the difference between a normal respiratory disease and Covid-19 does not prevent Jan Josef Liefers from pointing out that there will always be diseases. “We should have infections.” Then the actor takes another step and tries to act as a seismograph of society. He reminded the many angry people that there was a crack, we had to come down from our trees, one had to – and even Ute Teichert nodded slightly – withstand other opinions, including the reasons not to be vaccinated. Otherwise it could smash a lot of porcelain.
The cracks between him and Lauterbach heal a little that evening. Lauterbach admits that his criticism of Liefers was “maybe a bit harsh”. Perhaps you should still rely on metal cups when toasting. They hold up.
Marlene Knobloch: Marlene Knobloch is a freelance, streaming author, but dreams of televisions in the kitchen and bedroom. Every Sunday she could doze off linearly to the come-good-for-the-week wishes of the night magazine presenters with thousands of viewers in Germany. Until then, while peeling potatoes, she watches old Harald Schmidt episodes on her laptop.