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Celebrating Christmas and New Years Eve at ten? That may still change, Söder warns with “Anne Will.” Pandemic Researcher Priesemann says: The shutdown light has failed and requires tough decisions.
Most Germans expect ten people to spend Christmas and New Year’s Eve. But are festival contact restrictions being relaxed during the pandemic in the right way? Is there even a clear plan of what exactly the federal and state governments want to achieve? Is Asia better? Anne Will discussed this with her guests on Sunday night. An overview.
The guests
- Markus Söder, leader of the CSU party and Prime Minister of Bavaria
- Michael Müller (SPD), Mayor of Berlin
- Christian Lindner, leader of the FDP party and leader of the parliamentary group in the Bundestag
- Viola Priesemann, physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization
- Vanessa Vu, editor of “Zeit Online”
Corona rules: pros and cons
Only one thing is for sure at the moment: after the Corona summit is before the Corona summit. In reality, according to the latest agreement between the federal and state governments, the calendar seemed to be clear at least until the New Year. Contact restrictions will be relaxed for Christmas. Instead of five people, a maximum of ten close family and friends can gather for the festival and New Year’s Eve in most federal states, excluding children up to 14 years old. But when Anne Will asked her guest Markus Söder if she could promise the Bavarians about ten on Christmas, the head of the CSU initially responded: “No one can make promises in these times of pandemic.”
Although Söder later confirmed with a view to Christmas: “The ten will stay.” But he did not want to rule out a tightening of restrictions at the end of the year if “the lightest lockdown in Europe” did not continue to reduce the number of new infections as desired. “We will know in two weeks at the latest whether there is an impact or not and then we have to consider whether we have to readjust,” said the prime minister, who was connected from Bavaria.
The fact that Germany has so far not been more successful in fighting Corona is mainly due to Söder’s basic problem: “We argue too much.” For months, the danger posed by the virus has been minimized and all protective measures, be they masks or contact restrictions, have been broken down to the smallest detail. “Every time there is an endless debate,” complained the head of CSU. Critical questions were part of democracy. But: “This denial of the basic idea is something that does not strengthen us in general.” It is clear what the fight against Covid-19 is about: “The mother of all numbers is the number of infections.” Pushing them is the key.
But what is the exact value? Asked pandemic researcher Viola Priesemann. “I lack clear communication: what is the objective?”, He criticized. For epidemiologists, the effective strategy against the pandemic is clear: “We know how to do it.” The number of new infections each day should be reduced from around 20,000 cases to 2,000 to 5,000, and the reproduction value should drop from 1 to 0.75, for example. Then the capacities in the health authorities and the testing laboratories would be sufficient to trace the chains of infection and keep the significant number of unreported cases low, explained the researcher at the Max Planck Institute: “Then we will really be in two, three, a maximum four weeks. “
Corona: Is Asia better?
While restaurants and museums in Germany had to close again, public life in many East Asian countries is now almost completely normal, with a comparatively extremely low number of cases. So can Germany learn from Asian countries? Will asked Zeit Online reporter Vanessa Vu. Yes, said the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, mentioning specifically: clear goals, clear rules, strict quarantine requirements. Instead, Germany totters from one federal-state summit to the next, permanently wearing down citizens. With the discussions about free FFP2 masks, for example, they are distracted from the real goal: to reduce the number of cases as close to zero as possible to stop driving in sight and re-give predictability to the economy.
“We are always subject to the principle of proportionality,” said FDP leader Christian Lindner when restricting freedoms for the protection of health. However, he accused the government of wasting time, especially in protecting particularly vulnerable people. Among other things, Lindner suggested taxi vouchers for these risk groups in order to save them trips on public transport: “The money is well spent.”
“Maybe we were not so well prepared,” admitted Berlin’s ruling mayor Michael Müller, looking out to Asia. However, experience in other European countries has shown that a strict blockade is not a panacea. “We have come a long way on a sensible path,” said the SPD politician. However, your state does not want to relax contact restrictions on Christmas. “We have to protect the people,” Müller said.
Söder said he would be happy if the corona warning app worked as it should. It can help a lot more, but that fails because of the “very high data protection hurdle”.
The date of the night
For Priesemann, the time has really come to act. “The blocking light is worth trying. It would have been great if it had worked. It didn’t work,” said the physicist. With a huge but brief show of force, Germany was able to overcome the pandemic before using vaccines. “I want us to use everything we have to reduce the number of cases,” said the expert and asked politicians to set a goal of 2,000 to 5,000 new infections per day: “It is feasible.” Then the freedoms that people enjoy in other parts of the world will quickly be back in this country. “It’s a question of weighing interests: do we really want to have a shutdown light for the next four months?” Priesemann asked.
Fact checking
After the loosening was decided on Christmas and New Year’s Eve, there was criticism from health experts. “As a virologist, I find it incomprehensible,” said Melanie Brinkmann of the Helmholtz Institute for Infection Research in Deutschlandfunk. “I don’t think we’ve dropped the numbers enough by then to be relaxed and I don’t think it’s a good idea to relax.”
Scientists at Forschungszentrum Jülich and the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Study have also seen a possible “Christmas effect” in the model calculations and warned of a third corona wave. Their conclusion: “The simulations show that extending or strengthening the contact restrictions currently in force (maintaining current measures, introducing alternative regulations or also through individual restrictions) would lead to a decrease in new infections in the medium term. If contact rates were maintained well below that late summer level, a third wave could be suppressed. “
