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In the first wave, Karl Lauterbach almost had to beg for a conversation with members of the government. Once in the corridor of the Reichstag building, he stopped Peter Altmaier, who was absent and in a hurry to hear his warnings that the cost to the economy would be high.
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Today he is one of the most important allies of the Chancellor to communicate a hard course, the call that perseverance is worth it.
Lauterbach stands in front of the government bench shortly before nine, Angela Merkel enters the plenary session and goes to her seat. But instead of talking to his ministers, he talks to Karl Lauterbach for minutes about the crown situation, both of them gesticulating in FFP2 masks.
The gong sounds. Lauterbach then heads to his place at the rear of the SPD parliamentary group. But the health expert is everything, just not an endorsement, Merkel occasionally thanks him in her speeches.
And in the run-up to the latest Bund-Länder round, he advised the SPD prime minister along with virologist Christian Drosten for hours, a major contribution to convincing them of an unwanted extensive extension of the blockade until March 7. Most importantly, it explained how close a third wave could be due to the more aggressive mutations.
When the head of the AfD parliamentary group, Alice Weidel, accused Merkel of setting all resolutions in advance anyway (without explaining that countries and parties involved in governments were involved) and spoke of a “blatant display of arrogance. of Power “, a Policy of Prohibition and Compulsion, Lauterbach shakes his head.
He and his family are “threatened every day” by Weidel’s followers, he reports. It is a day in the Bundestag that reflects the situation in the country. Weidel represents the radical part of the devil of all the measures of the crown.
Merkel fights mistrust
Merkel is on the opposite side. But his situation has changed, his crisis management gets worse grades. And under pressure from the federal states, he had to cede and leave the management of schools and daycare centers to each federal state.
She is trying to get a statement from the government that admits flaws in general, presents the extension as if she has no alternative, shows empathy and gives hope. “It is a year in which we learned together how the virus works. Learning means not doing everything right from the beginning, including correcting ratings, as we did, for example, with the recommendations for the use of masks. “
In the summer, one had an incidence of 3. But when a second wave was announced, “we were not careful enough or fast enough.”
You can claim you saw it coming and it slowed down. An actual admission of a mistake looks different.
Currently, it can be considered a success that there should only be cautious initial steps of opening for the retail trade starting from 35 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants in seven days. “What has been decided is appropriate, necessary and proportionate.” It is necessary due to mutations despite the positive development of the situation. Many would have the feeling that they could not take it anymore, to whom she told: “We have come a long way from the very difficult road behind us.”
Germany is not far from the numbers “that will allow us to open up and give ourselves more freedom step by step”, Merkel emphasizes. It is not forgotten “in a single day” what the measures mean for citizens. But all the measures have been democratically decided and cannot be sustained for one day if your reasons are no longer applicable. And she tries to reach the hearts of the citizens, why do all this. Remember more than 60,000 deaths by crown in Germany. “These are our mothers, fathers, children, relatives, friends whom we could not retain. The sadness and the memory of you, “is always in the room when we make decisions.”
His latest appeal for the next few weeks: “In the end, we can only defeat this pandemic together and lead our country back to better times.”
“Citizens want more than a new haircut”
FDP leader Christian Lindner welcomes the fact that Merkel is making a government statement here, but again only after decisions have been made that the Chancellery draft could already be downloaded from the internet, while the Parliament was hardly informed in advance. With the limit of 35, he wanted to deliberately lift the bar for vacancies. “People expected more than a new haircut.” There is a movement of closure and summit to the next, without perspective. “At best, this is unimaginative and certainly, Miss Merkel, there is no other alternative.”
Why are there no exclusive time slots for the purchase of risk groups, taxi vouchers? Where are the air filters advertised for the whole area and the rapid tests? And the corona warning app was a failure. The biggest failure is and continues to be the lack of protection for residents in homes.
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Parliamentary union group leader Ralph Brinkhaus once again attacked Lindner. The FDP is trying to turn the pandemic into partisan political capital, but the population is realizing it. “It’s pathetic, Mr. Lindner.” Brinkhaus admits that vaccination problems must be resolved quickly and that the EU needs “production self-sufficiency” in vaccine manufacturing in the future.
For the CDU politician, too, dying at home is the worst in this pandemic, you have to deal with that, he says to the federal and state governments, but assigning blame like von Lindner would not help. And addressed to Lindner’s insistence on openings, he says it is about protecting life: “Freedom is always the freedom of the weak and not always only of the strong.”
Now, however, the first thing that is needed are concepts for federal state schools: test and ventilation strategies, more school buses, and a survey of who is where. “I think we have a lot to do at school.”
More emphatically, on this day, someone other than Lindner dismantles the Chancellor’s patterns of action and shortcomings. Angela Merkel taps on her smartphone, not even looking at Dietmar Bartsch. He also greets viewers at home.
Then, the leader of the left-wing parliamentary group runs off: “Miss Chancellor, it may bother you,” he begins. It remains unacceptable that you only report to parliament after Crown resolutions and do not consult with the people’s representatives beforehand. “And Ms. Chancellor: You think that, overall, nothing went wrong,” says Bartsch and looks at the government bench: “Today, once again, he expressed zero self-criticism, but a comparatively high level of complacency.”
Even a federal chancellor is good at a modicum of self-criticism. In autumn, Bundestag experts discussed a concept of protection for households, why was it so little implemented?
Every day people would continue to die in homes for the elderly and for the elderly because they are not protected and because the vaccine is lacking. Nothing wrong? “Dying at home is perhaps the darkest chapter in recent decades. And, by the way, there was never a summit ”. Everyone made mistakes, that’s the case in a pandemic. “But this papacy of infallibility is inappropriate in this situation,” says Bartsch. In a crisis in which the trust of citizens is the highest good, errors must be admitted “and not discarded in their own right”. And how many pedagogues were present at the Chancellor’s expert consultations? Merkel asks. According to studies, up to a third of children could develop mental disorders. To the direction of the Minister of Economy, Peter Altmaier, Bartsch says because of the slowness in the payment of Corona’s aid: “If you really don’t see any errors, then you have to go to the ophthalmologist.”
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From a world champion against the pandemic in the spring, Germany descended “into the vaccination cellar of Europe.” There are millions of desperate people trapped in hotlines, empty vaccination centers, and Merkel says nothing went wrong. Germany held the Presidency of the Council of the EU from July to December 2020.
And then he asks Merkel the following three questions, who must answer publicly to citizens: Why did the EU order the vaccine, which was financed with German taxpayer money, four months after Britain? Merkel cleans on her smartphone, reads the latest reports on a well-known news portal. Second question: Why did the EU order fewer doses of vaccines from Biontech and Moderna than was possible under the Presidency of the German Council and skimp on costs “in regards to the lives of its citizens? And third: Why did the EU in 2020 not take care of expanding production capacities in addition to funding research and, unlike others, “fell asleep completely” on this issue?
Lauterbach would have done it the other way around
Karl Lauterbach has already left, he is giving several interviews in the Reichstag corridor. He has promised that if everyone gets through again now, it will be a “great summer.”
The problem is also the lack of vaccine. And one thing bothers you a lot about new decisions. Why weren’t quick strategies and a logistics strategy developed for all schools first so that school buses are not as crowded instead of elementary schools reopening in February? “I would have done it the other way around.” He told everyone that, Lauterbach emphasizes, he is close to the Chancellor again, that he did not want a vacancy until March 1. Then he has to go on, admonish and warn.
