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Distance was yesterday: jokes on the Cologne Heumarkt
Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd / dpa
Peter pushes the stick deep into the woman's nose with the golden clip in her hair.
Number 50, he says.
"We'll call you." He places the small test cassette next to the others on a beer table covered with glossy red paper.
A pirate is handing out beer bottles from a box, the music is booming from outside.
The private test station in a back yard in the center of Cologne, decorated with colorful sequin doilies, looks like a conspiratorial meeting place.
Like a drink in the middle of Prohibition.
2G Plus applies.
Access is only granted with a charge.
And only those who are negative get a ribbon around their wrist and finally access to the carnival party at »Oma Kleinmann«, a traditional bar just around the corner on Zülpicher Strasse, one of the city's most famous amusement streets.
"It is very important to us that our guests can celebrate safely," says owner Maureen Wolf.
Close together
But even the 50 meters from the backyard to the pub entrance turn out to be a risk of infection.
If you want to get through, you have to squeeze through.
Thousands of people crowd the streets, all disguised, none with a mask, but according to the access control all vaccinated or recovered.
They sing, scream, bawl, laugh, close together.
Carnival songs and party classics boom from the pubs.
There is so much going on that the city spontaneously identifies the adjacent university meadows as additional party space and then sends a message at 4.39 p.m.: »All entrances are closed.
Uniwiesen full relief areas ", also please" keep calm ".
The first pukes are flashing from some corners, a man is sitting in the entrance to the house, in a pilot's costume, his head on his knees, the paramedics are on their way.
Everything as always on November 11th, when Cologne opens the carnival session.
If it weren't for the coronavirus thing.
But that's probably not what the celebrants want to deal with today.
"We did without it for a year and a half," says Mario, 23, in a Minions costume.
"Now it's our turn again."
For a long time it was unclear whether Cologne would do this 11.11.
should really celebrate again in public.
The crisis team met on Monday.
Reason meets disinhibition.
Can it work?
A lot had to be weighed up: concerns about the increasing incidence numbers, the increasing occupancy of intensive care beds.
The risk of launching a superspreading event.
On the other hand, people long for a little exuberance.
Not to forget all the restaurateurs who, after economically miserable months, would again have to be expected to forego one of the busiest days of the year.
The decision was finally made on Monday evening.
11.11.
takes place under 2G conditions, i.e. recovered or vaccinated.
The city has given up on the plus that many expected.
The criticism followed promptly.
"How we want to control 2G when swaying is not yet clear to me," said Christian Karagiannidis, head of the Divi intensive register, the "Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger".
Will be fine somehow
On Thursday morning the incidence was already 213. On Wednesday the festival committee, the power center of the organized Cologne carnival, had an appointment with the NRW state government.
Apparently Düsseldorf wanted to reassure itself whether the Cologne people really know what they are doing.
As early as Thursday noon it can be said: The people of Cologne rely primarily on Article 3 of their Basic Law - "Et would still have jot jejange".
So it will be fine somehow.
Secretly everyone here should know this 11.11.
is an experiment, one that can become a suicide mission.
If the virus doesn't spread here today, it's just out of luck.
Because there can be no talk of a controlled mass party.
It is true that celebrants only get access to the cordoned off zones with 2G proof.
But the festival committee has known since Wednesday evening at the latest that vaccinated people can be positive and thus contagious without symptoms.
"That's absolute madness"
As if everything wasn't already complicated enough, new terrible news burst into the final preparations: Prince Carnival, Sven I., tested positive for Corona.
Now he is in quarantine, all appearances by him and his entourage have been canceled.
But even beyond the barriers and the 2G controls, thousands of people crowd in front of the pubs and beer stands all over the city, drinking, partying and dancing.
Masks are mostly not visible.
A resident says: “This is absolutely amazing.
We spent a year and a half with lockdowns and bans, with homeschooling and home office.
And risk everything in one day.
That can not be true."
On Thursday morning, Ralf Schlegelmilch is standing in the backstage area of the stage on Heumarkt and utterly matter-of-factly sentences like: »Everything's been going well so far.
I am happy.
It's nice to see that it works. «The entrepreneur is head of the large Willi Ostermann Society, which has been organizing the official start of the session in the old town since 1969.
Probably nobody wants to be in his skin today.
Schlegelmilch had to endure a lot in the past few months.
He had already announced in August that he only wanted to host the opening of the session - if at all - with 2G.
After that, vaccination opponents, vaccination skeptics and corona deniers attacked him.
He was insulted and insulted on social media.
A Star of David landed in his mailbox in a franked envelope.
But today, on the eleventh in the eleventh, Schlegelmilch is suddenly seen as the careless despite 2G.
"What we're doing here isn't illegal," he justifies himself.
And it's not too risky either, he spent many months in security and controls.
In addition: Gottschalk moderates "Wetten, dass ..?", Football fans go to full stadiums.
So why not Carnival?
“We want to get back to normal.
And we're starting today, «says Schlegelmilch.
He calls out to the unvaccinated critics: “This is a private event.
There is no basic right to be here. "
"Mer sing Alaaf"
10,000 people have gathered on the square to celebrate the start of the fifth season. Sold out. "Mer sing Alaaf", the "Brings" blar on the stage. It becomes melancholy. The revelers hook themselves and sway while standing. A soulful moment in which even outsiders briefly understand why the carnival counts so much here.
Nevertheless, many are uncomfortable with the situation.
"It's a queasy feeling," says Tina, who came with her group "Kölscherie".
Just yesterday evening the six women had discussed whether they should really take the risk.
Your men were against it.
A man from a family friend had also tested positive despite a double vaccination and booster.
That makes you pensive, they say.
But the beer drives away the worries.
"With every sip, the reservations disappear." That is not sensible.
In two weeks at the latest, Cologne will know whether the risk of a mass party in Corona times was worth it.
Then the city will either be a role model.
Or have a lot to explain.
