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The situation in the morning - Corona easing, winter onset, gender

2021-02-08T07:16:13.330Z


Austria loosens, Germany struggles - what does the new corona meeting of the federal and state governments bring? How does language create reality? And: from lockdown to flockdown. That is the situation on Monday.


Dangerous corona fatigue

The next few days will be dominated by the preparations for the Prime Minister's Conference with the Chancellor on Wednesday and the analysis of the measures then decided.

Will the round, which it doesn't look like, decide to relax?

Will the lockdown be extended?

Will there be regional easing and how would this fit into a nationwide "perspective plan" that Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig, for example, would like?

On the one hand, the declining number of infections in Germany suggests cautious optimism; on the other hand, the situation remains unpredictable due to the mutations.

In Italy, for a few days now, people have been able to go to cafés again during the day or visit sights such as the Colosseum during the week.

Daycare centers and primary schools are opening in the Netherlands today.

And in Austria shops, hairdressers, schools and museums are allowed to reopen under strict conditions.

But a few days ago Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said at a press conference: "The safest way would be to remain in lockdown."

He relaxed with regard to "social and psychological aspects".

Kurz 'ÖVP party friend Hermann Schützenhöfer, Governor of Styria, said: “Everything we do is, so to speak, a ride over the razor blade.

But: We want this country, we want to give the people confidence. "

Icon: enlarge

Street café in Rome last weekend: return of the "Dolce Vita"

Photo: Cecilia Fabiano / dpa

In Germany, too, there is dangerous pandemic fatigue, the consequences of those social and psychological aspects are becoming apparent.

But the virologist Melanie Brinkmann warns in a now much discussed SPIEGEL conversation against loosening and "wishful thinking, fed by false promises made by some politicians."

She says, "We never get enough people vaccinated before the mutants hit."

Good arguments for easing go against good arguments against easing - but how can this be turned into a good plan?

Various state governments are working out plans for Wednesday to reconcile one and the other arguments.

The Thuringian government is working on a step-by-step plan: when it comes to the question of opening schools and daycare centers, the vaccination rate or the utilization of intensive care beds should also be included.

Thuringia, however, currently has the highest incidence value of all federal states.

  • Shutdown rules: the new levels of the corona debate

Language I - How words change perception

Language not only depicts reality, it also influences the perception of reality.

At the moment in particular, the topic of language is constantly being debated.

The Duden editors have now included gender-fair variants in their online dictionary, and the editor-in-chief has to defend herself against criticism.

The "Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung" also had a headline story about language.

Overall, the debate goes far beyond gender.

Tonight at 8 p.m. you can watch a

SPIEGELlive event on the »power of language«

via a live

stream

.

On the podium, which will be moderated by my colleague Philipp Oehmke, the cabaret artist Lisa Eckhart, who recently sparked a particularly heated argument with her stage programs, is being discussed with the social activist Ali Can and the philosopher Philipp Hübl.

The questions they ask themselves: How is our language changing and what does that say about social developments?

What is satire allowed to do and is the cancel culture phenomenon a legitimate corrective?

  • If you are interested - you can get information here https://www.spiegel-live.de/events/die-macht-der-sprache/ and tickets here https://derspiegellive.reservix.de/events

When it comes to gender, for example, I myself have more questions than answers.

I feel most comfortable with naming the female and the male form equally, but sometimes this also results in a stumble.

I am also aware that not everyone feels represented by it.

The gender asterisk and the Binnen-I bother me in my reading flow, even after many years I hadn't been able to get used to the Binnen-I, which the "taz" introduced decades ago.

The debates about how language creates reality are absolutely necessary and important.

And I myself am curious whether and how my own opinions and habits will change here.

Language II - From lockdown to flockdown

Icon: enlarge

Snow-covered Leipzig city center

Photo: Peter Endig / dpa

Language can do so much, its rules result from logic and it is especially nice to play with it.

The word "lockdown" was voted Anglicism of the year a few days ago.

It prevailed against "homeschooling", "social distancing" and "superspreader".

The jury praised the "rapid integration into German vocabulary and the life of its own typical of loanwords".

The life of its own was confirmed at the weekend: The snow chaos in parts of Germany was renamed "Flockdown" yesterday.

  • Traffic chaos in Germany: extreme winter

Mini-series »New Again«

If nothing goes wrong, I'll accompany you

through this week

with the

Morning Briefing

.

Often we end it with the category “winners / losers of the day”, but this week I want to try something different.

The pandemic has now had us under control for almost a year - what, I would like to ask in the

mini-series »New Again«

, have we learned to appreciate or discovered again in this long state of emergency - and not on a large scale, but in everyday life?

This question shouldn't seem cynical in the face of all the sorrow and suffering, but if we didn't learn anything, it would all be in vain.

The first episode is about what makes our neighborhood worth living in:

When I walk through my neighborhood, I sometimes ask myself whether I'm moving through the backdrops of a past time.

All the small restaurants and cafes and shops used to be a part of life, they were just there without my thinking about it.

But how much longer will they be able to hold out?

What if everyone has gotten so used to buying online that they won't find their way back to their old habits later?

The operators' e-mail addresses and mobile phone numbers are now stuck on the shop windows, you can order whatever you like in the shop window or what is presented on the respective homepages, if there are any.

The goods are then conspiratorially passed through half-open doors.

"We can only do this because our customers stick to us like that," said a shopkeeper the other day through the crack in the door.

Those who like to live in such neighborhoods have to do something themselves to ensure that they stay the way they are.

That was the case before and is now new again.

  • This is how Germany is doing in the pandemic: When will it be real life again?

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  • When parents and grandparents argue: "Of course grandpa bought his grandchildren a Fanta"

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  • How a former mistress helped Napoleon to power: "I have very interesting things to discuss with you"

I wish you a good start to the day.

Your Susanne Beyer

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2021-02-08

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