Quarantine means being alone, bored and complicated procurement channels if the refrigerator is unfortunately empty. In addition, quarantine could soon mean loss of earnings, at least for some. The health ministers got together on Wednesday and decided: Those who have not been vaccinated and have to isolate themselves as a contact person for someone infected will soon have to forego their salary during this time.
That German Infection Protection Act regulates that everyone who cannot go about their work because of a quarantine order will be compensated for the loss of earnings. In fact, he continues to receive his salary; the employer gets it back from the state. The same law also states that this right does not apply if the person concerned could have avoided quarantine, for example by vaccination. Because there is now more than enough vaccine, the federal states believe the time has come to apply this passage.
A misunderstood freedom – at the expense of the community
It’s a tough decision, but the right one. Those who do not want to be vaccinated are putting themselves and others in danger. Vaccinated people can also infect themselves and others. First, however, they become infected less often and, if infected, are less long and less strongly infectious, which is why they pose a lower risk. Second, they usually do not get seriously ill, so they do not jeopardize the goal of preventing an overload of the healthcare system. Anyone who claims the freedom to say no to a vaccination that has been tried and tested a million times may not permanently socialize the follow-up costs of this decision. The compensation has already cost the federal states 600 million euros. As with the citizen tests, those who do not want to contribute to avoiding such costs should also pay for it.
And yet the decision has a flaw. Like the end of the free tests, the state-mandated 3-G rule and the offer to the private sector, pubs and stadiums to be able to use full capacity if hosts and organizers enforce 2 G themselves, it is just another crutch to get on the German rumble path towards immunization not to stumble completely.
The strategy in this country is a crazy back and forth
The federal and state governments made an early commitment and promised: There will be no compulsory vaccination. Now autumn and winter are just around the corner, and the vaccination campaign is by no means where it should be. The goal of getting safely through the cold season is in danger. And the goal of finally being able to live completely normally again, as in Denmark, for example, almost out of sight. But politics is messing around. Vaccination query in the company? Only in selected institutions. Is it compulsory to vaccinate at least for employees who deal with particularly endangered (nursing home) or completely unprotected (daycare, elementary school) people? “There will be no compulsory vaccination!” 2 G as a political requirement? No, better as an option for the economy, which should get its hands dirty.
France and Italy went a different way with stricter vaccination and testing requirements. It has led to protests, but also to higher vaccination rates. The German way, on the other hand, is a squeezed back and forth between hardship and forbearance, which not only increases the frustration on the part of the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, but is clearly unsuccessful. To continue to talk about voluntariness, but to tighten the rules for the unvaccinated bit by bit, is not a golden mean, but equally dishonest and ineffective. The next federal government will first have to deal with the consequences. Earlier than you would like.