In the meantime, compulsory vaccination has been discussed so frequently on German talk television that the word can be hacked into the keyboard almost without an accident on the first try. Like the pandemic, the debate about mandatory corona vaccination seems to be going in waves: First, it was discussed whether mandatory vaccination was really necessary, then whether parliamentarians should make the decision according to party lines or personal conscience. After the Bavarian Prime Minister and team back-and-forth captain Markus Söder announced that he would more or less suspend the facility-related compulsory vaccination that had actually been decided, the third wave of the debate has arrived: Can compulsory vaccination be implemented in practice? And is it still necessary in view of the milder omicron variant?
In order to discuss these questions, Anne Will invited Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) and CSU General Secretary Markus Blume, among others. Even though three other guests have taken a seat in the beige armchairs, the evening developed primarily into an exhibition match between Lauterbach and Blume.
If you listen closely, you can even hear a slight crescendo in Lauterbach’s Rhenish singsong: “Don’t pretend to be more stupid than you are,” he accuses Blume at some point. As expected, the Minister of Health has little understanding for the Bavarian state government’s move not to implement the facility-related vaccination requirement for the time being: “We cannot choose which laws apply to us.”
“Since when is a Bavarian prime minister someone who no longer feels bound by the law?” moderator Will von Blume also wants to know. The man with what is probably the most thankless job in the round points out that “to this day” there are no instructions for the law to be implemented. Lauterbach counters: “The 23-page handout may not be enough for you. I’m happy to accept constructive suggestions.”
Elke Keiner, head of a nursing home in Freital, Saxony, also sees problems with implementation, where 27 of 81 employees are not vaccinated. She fears that compulsory vaccination will exacerbate the already tense staffing situation in nursing: “If you push a storm over a roof that already has no shingles, then you don’t have to be surprised that the roof doesn’t have a roof afterwards is.”
The virologist Jana Schroeder reports that there is another way. In her clinic network in North Rhine-Westphalia there are facilities with a 100% vaccination rate, an essential factor for this is education. She doesn’t find the current back and forth about the institution-related compulsory vaccination very profitable: “I also mean quite honestly, to all politicians here: Clarify that internally.” The doctor considers it much more important to increase the general vaccination rate in the population. “If you don’t achieve a high level of immunity among the population, then we will have a pandemic detention,” she warns, looking ahead to autumn.
“We hear out: You have to be very, very careful,” says Anne Will at the end of the show and raises her eyebrows. Whether she means that with regard to the virus, trust in politics or something else entirely remains her secret.
Kathrin Müller-Lance: Kathrin Müller-Lance would like to say that she only works in the Arte media library. But then she likes to look exclusively at RTL to see what the celebrities are doing.