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Reiner Haseloff, Michael Kretschmer
Photo: Florian Gaertner / photothek.net / imago images / photothek
Markus Söder has long since found his role in the corona crisis.
He gives the advocate of strict rules, the admonisher par excellence.
And he likes to get a little pathetic in the process.
He could not give the all-clear, said the Bavarian Prime Minister at the weekend at the online party conference of his CSU.
"Corona is back with full force, all might across Europe."
According to Söder, the pandemic is "the test of our time and our generation".
At least as far as the Corona force is concerned, Söder is probably right.
The number of new patients has been increasing again for weeks, internationally but also in this country.
On Saturday, the Robert Koch Institute reported 2,946 infections in one day - more than since April.
Söder's corona problem is particularly big.
Bavaria has been hit hard by the crisis.
Munich is now a Corona hotspot.
Are people becoming more careless?
But there is also a mood of alarm elsewhere in the republic.
And it could get worse.
Experts are already warning about the coming months.
Namely, when it gets colder outside and people prefer to be in closed rooms than in the fresh air.
"Autumn and winter can cause worry lines on your forehead," said virologist Martin Stürmer recently.
On top of that, people seem to have become a bit careless over the summer.
According to a survey by the Hamburg Center for Health Economics (HCHE), less and less attention is paid to distance and hygiene recommendations.
So it's high time for a clear signal that something has to change again in the fight against Corona?
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Chancellor Merkel in spring 2020
Photo: Kay Nietfeld / dpa
Next Tuesday, the heads of government of the federal states will once again team up with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
There will probably be two main questions: Are appeals sufficient or do citizens have to be encouraged to exercise caution again with stricter rules?
And do we need more standardized arrangements for all of Germany again?
At the moment, the following primarily applies: the Corona fight is being carried out regionally, with appropriate measures where the virus is rampant.
The strategy was also a result of the increasingly laborious Prime Minister's rounds, in which a broad consensus on how to deal with the pandemic was often very difficult to achieve.
"Follow our own path"
Attempts to agree on more common rules in the federal government failed recently.
In the most recent round at the end of August, Chancellor Merkel actually wanted to limit meetings in apartments and on private property to 25 people.
Söder had always spoken out in favor of nationwide Corona standards.
In the end, the group could only agree on a very thin formulation.
"Depending on the regional infection rate", was the resolution, "restrictions are to be issued for private celebrations, for example by lowering the maximum number of participants".
And obviously in some federal states they are determined not to allow themselves to be prescribed any more in the future.
Two CDU ministers-presidents already announced on Tuesday via "Bild am Sonntag": Everything should stay the same.
"In Saxony-Anhalt we continue to pursue our own path," said the head of government there, Reiner Haseloff.
The infections are still traceable in his country.
According to Haseloff, he sees no reason "to think about tightening the measures again".
He had already spoken almost word for word in SPIEGEL a few days earlier.
Michael Kretschmer from Saxony is also defending himself against a new course.
"I am counting on the personal responsibility of the people who will and must behave more disciplined in the autumn," he said now.
Calls for a change of course
The calls get louder and louder after a change of course.
Especially the private parties are considered dangerous.
"At the moment, people are mainly infected in their private sphere," said Lothar Wieler, head of the Robert Koch Institute in the "Welt am Sonntag", "at parties, wedding celebrations, funerals, and also in church services".
District Assembly President Reinhard Sager therefore advocated introducing a general upper limit of less than 50 participants for private celebrations.
Otherwise it would be "logistically extremely difficult to follow up the contacts," said the CDU politician.
Recently the Marburg Association of Physicians also called for "uniform rules for private and public celebrations of all kinds".
In addition, the Association of Towns and Municipalities is pressing for an expansion of the mask requirement.
Mouth and nose protection should be prescribed wherever the distance cannot be maintained in public spaces, for example in busy places, it said on Sunday - or in areas where more than 50 new infections per week occur for every hundred thousand residents .
Skepticism not only in the east
However, it is not surprising that there is resistance to such specific national guidelines.
In the east in particular, there is concern that harsh government measures could continue to play into the hands of the right.
Above all, however, the perceived pressure to act is often less.
In many places there have been only a few infections so far.
Rigid central requirements for private parties are also viewed critically in the SPD-ruled Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, for example.
However, Haseloff in particular offered fierce resistance to a restrictive course in the last ministerial round at the end of August.
At the time, the CDU man blocked himself against a fine for mask refusers and promoted spectators in football stadiums.
It therefore remains extremely questionable whether the prime ministers will focus on more unity this time.
Where there is more sympathy for nationwide regulations, one does not really want to believe in a change of course.
"The seriousness of the situation has become even clearer in the past few weeks," it is said from the environment of a state government.
"But the principle of regional action is unlikely to change."
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