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FFP2 mask: On whose back do you want to fight this fight?
Photo: Lightspruch / iStockphoto / Getty Images
There is probably not a single person doing everything right in this pandemic. Some allow themselves a little too many social contacts, some wear the mask incorrectly, some no longer wash their hands properly and some ignore all measures right away. But of course there are also those who at least try to get everything right, and sometimes things go a little wrong: at the latest when you preach to a saleswoman, a waiter, a ticket taker in the cinema for not saying that she or he is not Checking the vaccination records or masks, you can no longer do it correctly.
It is a dilemma that we owe to the aggressive minority of corona deniers and vaccination refusals: Everyone wants the pandemic to end and for this it would be necessary to wear 2G or 2G masks in as many public places as possible Control 2G plus or 3G evidence - but those who control it are sometimes attacked.
A few pieces of news from the past few weeks and months: A man who did not want to put on a mask in an Aldi store broke the nose of an employee and tore out a clump of hair from another. A man who did not want to wear a mask on an ICE threw a glass bottle and stones at a train attendant. A woman who did not want to wear a mask in Dortmund's main train station, together with her husband, who was wearing the mask under his nose, attacked the policemen controlling with blows and kicks. The police checked at a private party in Berlin attended by unvaccinated people, and a police officer was attacked and broken bones. Also in Berlin: A 50-year-old man was on the tram and reminded three other passengers of the mask requirement. One of them hit and kicked the man.He was hospitalized with severe head injuries.
How Much Control is Enough?
And then of course the murder in Idar-Oberstein: A 20-year-old student who worked at a gas station was shot by a 49-year-old after a dispute over the mask requirement.
At another gas station in Regensburg, a man refused to put on his mask to pay and then tried to run over the gas station attendant.
These are just a few reports from the last time, there are of course a lot more incidents.
Sometimes it is service employees, sometimes people from the public order office or the police, sometimes private individuals who are insulted or attacked because they point out hygiene rules to others.
Although it is now well known that these things happen, there are always people who complain that there is not enough control, regardless of whether it is vaccination certificates or masks. On the one hand, it's understandable that people want the rules to be followed. On the other hand: on whose back do you want to fight this fight? It has to necessarily go wrong if corona policy works in such a way that individuals who are not trained to do so are suddenly responsible for making people behave sensibly.
If people who work in gastronomy, in cinemas, at the entrance to cultural institutions or in retail, are charged with complying with the corona rules in addition to their normal tasks, then they are exposed to an increased risk of being insulted or physically attacked. Security staff may be trained to deal with conflicts, and in theory so are the police - but everyone else? Which are usually badly paid anyway?
When people who have been vaccinated and tested go somewhere that is a requirement and are then not checked and complain afterwards, whether in conversations or on social media, it often has a strange undertone.
Of course you want to feel safe, understandable - but sometimes it sounds a bit like: "Rewards me for doing everything right here, rewards me with the pleasant feeling of being able to show my booster certificate during a check."
Others want to protect themselves from attacks
Surely one cannot react to the fact that people are attacked by mask refusers when they are being checked by no longer checking anything.
But the solution cannot be to complain about people doing stressful jobs for minimum wages.
And the solution cannot be for the police to control everything, nobody wants that either.
Do we still remember the clapping on the balcony?
This helpless statement in the penultimate wave?
Keyword political failure, keyword overloaded systemically important workers, keyword solidarity?
The clapping didn't do anything, as we know today, but it seems like we take a step back now and then when people complain when a bar owner doesn't ask every drunk guest for their vaccination certificate.
The essence of a dilemma is that it cannot be resolved well.
A dilemma remains that compliance with the corona rules should be better monitored and those who do so risk their health or even their life in case of doubt.
The worst solution to this dilemma is to blame those who do a tough job.
The better, perhaps bitter, solution is to do your part as best you can and understand when others want to protect themselves from attack.