Today we are concerned with the results of yesterday's Bund-Länder-Round, with thanks as a transparent political means and the amazing German love for hairstyle.
The federal-state strategy: take pressure off, circumvent problems
In the beginning - a drink of water.
The Chancellor vigorously opened the bottle and poured herself, noisily because the glass was on the microphone.
She drank hastily.
This is how the long-awaited press conference started, which the Chancellor opened yesterday evening together with Martin Müller, the Governing Mayor of Berlin, and Markus Söder, the Bavarian Prime Minister.
The signal was clear: Her throat is dry, she has talked for hours, the Chancellor, talking like a struggle.
She wanted to be stricter than parts of the Prime Minister's round.
The fact that this was the case again, that she could not fully penetrate again, was later reflected in the announcements of the evening.
But before that happened, Angela Merkel thanked the people first.
It was the citizens who, with their discipline, ensured that the number of infections was now going down.
Icon: enlarge
Müller, Merkel, Söder
Photo: Pool / Getty Images
When Michael Müller spoke up, he too began with thanks: "We see that it was not in vain."
Self-praise resonated in the praise.
After all, the citizens followed the decisions made by the Chancellor and the heads of states.
The three are to blame for the fact that the shutdown is now being extended despite everything, where no one is to blame: with the mutants.
The thanks should probably be used to appease the bad mood in the country, but it has not only to do with the mutants.
Their real cause lies in their disappointment with the poor vaccination management.
And politics is responsible for that, even if the citizens scraped together all their goodwill and admitted that a vaccination strategy is a much more difficult matter for politicians when they have to govern a country that is part of a 27-state association is as if she can comfortably rule over a dictatorship or autocracy or over a geographically isolated island state like New Zealand.
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Michael Müller, Governing Mayor of Berlin
Photo: Markus Schreiber / dpa
But there was hardly any room for self-criticism at yesterday's press conference of the political trio.
Söder had to accommodate messages that he dictated to the journalists in their laptops with the vehemence of a not quite as clever PR specialist.
Sometimes he spoke of a "caution with perspective", then again of a "perspective with caution".
And when he wasn't allowed to talk, he looked in the direction of the tabletop, made the swiping movements typical of the use of digital devices, as if looking to see whether his favorite phrase had already made it into a headline (he probably didn't play Candy Crush).
Merkel-Müller-Söder demonstrated unity, but there was only one topic of disagreement: Mayor Müller was amazed at the urgency with which the hairdressing salons had apparently been opened in the previous round or elsewhere.
He thought aloud and not without perplexity about whether hygienic reasons played a role here.
Söder contradicted: The question of hairstyle is also a question of “dignity”, the need to “find yourself again” in a time of pandemic.
If you can't control the virus, at least your own hair?
This was the strangest, but also the warmest moment of a largely sober announcement, which was determined by numbers of different kinds, especially this one: 35. Only when this seven-day incidence value of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants has been reached should retailers and museums and to be able to reopen galleries and businesses with "body-friendly services".
Corona summit with Prime Minister: Merkel's shutdown business
More numbers
the
shutdown
is
until March 7,
extended
Hairdressers
can
reopen on March 1st
despite the extension
The Chancellor wanted to
open the schools
on March 1st
, but now there will be
no nationwide uniform regulation
.
Reluctantly, Merkel agreed with the
state heads of
government that
the states,
with their cultural sovereignty,
would decide
for
themselves
The first reactions
Icon: enlarge
Closed hairdressing salon in Stuttgart (symbol picture)
Photo: Sebastian Gollnow / dpa
Relief for the hairdressers, relief also for many parents who are worried about their children - studies confirm that the number of psychological impairments and even illnesses has increased due to the pandemic.
Disappointment in retail, also among cultural workers.
The strategists of the No-Covid-Initiative, who, in view of the mutants, are calling for stricter travel regulations, for example, are shocked.
So the result of yesterday's round is
a mixed picture
- from the perspective of politics, it couldn't be any different.
The pressure had to be released in a few places, otherwise the real deficits would fly around her head from now on: the missing vaccine, the missing tests.
And so on.
By the
way, another number was delivered:
On March 3rd,
the Bund-Länder-Round will
meet again.
Corona resolutions: permanent shutdown with perm
Mini-series »New Again«
The pandemic has had us under control for almost a year, which is why I would like to close this week's Morning Briefings with a miniseries instead of “Winners / Losers of the Day”:
“New Again”.
I would like to ask what we have come to appreciate again in this long state of emergency - and not on a large scale, but in everyday life.
I should always like to point out that this question should not seem cynical in view of all the sorrow and suffering.
But if we didn't learn anything, everything would be in vain.
The fourth episode today is supposed to be about convenience.
Clothes are perhaps not important, but they are not unimportant either, we wear them every day and, as Mr. Söder would say, we can "find ourselves" in them.
Appearance expresses something, as the Sun King already knew in the 17th century and reached for a powdered wig in Palace of Versailles.
But the workers of the 1920s who wore suits outside of their jobs also knew this, as can be seen in wonderful black and white photographs.
As clothes became comfortable, their beauty faded.
But the home office, in which many of us have been sitting for months, with an emphasis on sitting, is also an office.
Here clothes should be nice, at least up to about the navel, but not pinch just below.
How good that clothing that is beautiful and comfortable caught on shortly before the pandemic: For the so-called workin 'moms who hurried from the office to the playground in the distant days of normalcy, higher doses of elastane were mixed into the fabric.
The pandemic should disappear soon, please let the elastane stay.
Highly dosed.
It has never worked as well as it does now.
The latest news from the night
Legendary porn publisher Larry Flynt dies:
his "Hustler" magazine turned the market for adult magazines upside down with explicit recordings - he himself went from one scandal to the next.
Larry Flynt has now died at the age of 78
Söder is considering closing borders with Austria and the Czech Republic:
In Bavaria, people look with concern at the neighboring countries - specifically the Czech Republic and Austria.
If one does not act consistently there, the borders could soon be closed
Union wants to raise the minimum age in prostitution to 21 years:
A position paper by the CDU and CSU provides for comprehensive new regulations for the sex trade.
In addition to raising the minimum age, for example, sexual intercourse with pregnant women should become a criminal offense
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I wish you a good start to the day.
Your Susanne Beyer
