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Frank Plasberg
Photo: Horst Galuschka / dpa
"Trump voted out, corona vaccine found", Frank Plasberg sums up the past few days: "You could think that God has fun at work again".
One might argue about the rhetorical close connection between the US president and the virus.
Yet the tone seems to be changing from minor to major.
And so a hopeful ray of sun penetrates into the studio of "hart aber fair", where originally a broadcast of the lockdown and its effects was planned - a guest like TV chef and restaurateur Steffen Henssler now sat there at times a little out of place.
Karl Lauterbach rejoices
Karl Lauterbach, health expert for the SPD, proved to be the ideal choice for this.
Because the notorious Corona-Kassandra has rarely been seen so happy, almost carefree.
The progress made in research into a vaccine, which the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its Palatine daughter Biontech were able to report, is "a clear breakthrough" for Lauterbach as well.
The trained epidemiologist can hardly get out of the enthusiasm, even details inspire him.
The serum will "probably have very few side effects", just "a game changer".
In short, he was "optimistic for various reasons".
The reasons don't matter.
Lauterbach!
Optimistic!
SPD colleague Peter Tschentscher, First Mayor of Hamburg and molecular biologist, is similarly euphoric, even if more Hanseatic controlled.
Technological preparations are already being made to bring the vaccine to the people.
And Isabella Eckerle, a virologist in Geneva, even promised that "in the end there would be a whole range", a "patchwork" of vaccines with different profiles.
Yeah
Kubicki cranks the organ organ
Wolfgang Kubicki, FDP, seemed even more out of place than Henssler in this group when he began to crank the old organ grinder with a focus on better protection for particularly endangered population groups.
This is what they say is spilled milk.
And when he then called for a more extensive use of rapid tests, Tschentscher slowed him down: "That doesn't fit into reality now, Mr. Kubicki".
Hamburg, for example, has long been using the tests - at least those that are good.
Eckerle adds that the pandemic cannot be "tested away" and that there is no avoiding measures in the medium term.
In response to the finding that those willing to vaccinate would be happy to receive vaccines that opponents of the vaccination reject, Kubicki humorously remarks: "They then go twice instead of the others," whereupon Lauterbach says humorlessly: "They have to do that anyway."
The lawyer from the FDP was able to help at least with smoothing the waves when it came to the inviolability of the apartment at "private" parties with 75 visitors.
As with any disturbance of the peace, you could call the police.
A vaccination obligation, as feared by injection phobics who are active in civil rights, is neither technically nor legally feasible - and also not desired.
Now the hour has come for Steffen Henssler, for whom the prospect of antibodies not even as a calming psychopharmaceutical is mild.
The chef has "the feeling that the topic has been eaten".
He is happy about the silver lining, but with a view to his badly affected industry, he thinks "the time that goes into the country before it really is that far" for too long.
Hence the question: "How long will it go?".
Lauterbach estimates that the normal Otto restaurant visitor, who is neither endangered nor systemically relevant, will probably only be able to pick up his beneficial dose "in the second half of the coming year", and probably even "in the second half of the second half".
Gallows humorist Henssler suggests, similar to the smoking area, special areas for guests who have already been vaccinated and those who have not yet been vaccinated.
The journalist Kristina Dunz, as Plasberg says, "got herself something like a private vaccination, suffered as you take it".
Dunz talks about her mild corona illness and emphasizes that worrying about friends and relatives was particularly stressful - worse than the illness with its symptoms.
Vaccine or not.
Like the incumbent US president, the virus will probably remain with us for a while longer.
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