The situation in the morning: can the summer still be saved?

I promise, the situation today will be without the consequences of the power struggle in the Union.

Instead: The strict vaccination sequence could soon be lifted, Angela Merkel has to testify in the Wirecard investigation committee and the police union is fighting with allegations of sexism.

Vaccination for everyone

Can we still enjoy a real summer?

With more freedom, fewer worries, fewer rules that spoil our mood.

Is there a vacation worthy of the name?

At least we can look a little more hopefully to the coming months.

Vaccinations are finally taking place at a faster pace

, and several states - Bavaria, Berlin, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony - are now distributing the badly reputed AstraZeneca vaccine to anyone who wants it.

And at the end of May, beginning of June, the health

minister promises, the strict vaccination sequence

could even be fundamentally

over

.

Enlarge image

Vaccination in a family doctor's practice in Pforzheim

Photo: 

Christoph Schmidt / dpa

The prioritization was important, correct and fair at the beginning, especially since the vaccine was scarce.

But if, as announced, Biontech and Co. can deliver more and more, then it should also be about vaccinating as many people as possible in a short period of time.

No dose should be left because an appointment was canceled or the vaccine was spurned.

Let's not kid ourselves, it will take some time before herd immunity. Currently, just over a fifth of people have received at least one dose of vaccine. There is still room for improvement in the population's willingness to vaccinate. And everyone who frantically telephones doctors in Munich, Berlin or Schwerin to get their Astra syringes could be disappointed: Currently only around one million AstraZeneca cans are not inoculated nationwide - and the manufacturer has not always kept delivery promises.

And the truth is also:

If vaccinations can be given more flexibly, if younger people without previous illnesses or risk contacts can also receive an injection, then the responsibility of the general practitioner increases

. Thanks to the family doctors, the campaign has picked up speed. If the vaccination sequence is reversed, you must ensure that priority continues to be given to those patients who are particularly at risk - not those who have the best contacts.

The signal should not be that the healthy impatient will in future be able to push past the weak in the queue.

For Jens Spahn it will not be inconvenient if the family doctors have to deal with these problems as soon as possible.

Once the prioritization is a thing of the past, no one should hold the health minister responsible if the vaccination fails before the summer.

• Survey: This is how willing you are to get vaccinated

Benevolent accompaniment

Celebrity week in the

Wirecard investigation committee

: On Tuesday it was the turn of Economics Minister Peter Altmaier (did not cut a particularly good figure), on Thursday Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (rejected any responsibility),

today Angela Merkel has to answer questions from MPs

.

Enlarge image

The old days: Merkel and Guttenberg in the Bundestag at the end of October 2009

Photo: KAI PFAFFENBACH / REUTERS

Central question: Why did the Chancellor personally advocate the financial service provider's market entry in the People's Republic on a trip to China in September 2019?

At a time when there were already a number of alarming reports of market manipulation and regulatory investigations.

Merkel had asked a certain Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg for the government advertising in advance, formerly Minister of Economics and Defense under the Chancellor.

SPIEGEL had revealed that Guttenberg had called on September 3, 2019 as a Wirecard lobbyist at the Chancellery "and explored the possibilities of benevolent support in bilateral relations with China," as the ex-minister later explained.

The parliamentarians in the committee of inquiry will want to know why Merkel let Guttenberg hired her for Wirecard.

Did she really have no idea that the Dax group already had a questionable reputation back then? Didn't your people let you know? Or did she do it despite knowing the allegations?

Either way, things are uncomfortable for Merkel.

But even if the opposition and possibly also the coalition partner SPD try to drive the Chancellor into a corner - groundbreaking findings are unlikely to be expected.

In his testimony before the committee, Guttenberg had stated that the Wirecard issue only lasted two to three minutes in conversation with the Chancellor, and that Merkel had not "jumped up with waving flags," but referred to her experts.

The Chancellor will be happy to agree to this.

• Olaf Scholz before the Wirecard committee: The self-exonerating witness

Police union with sexism problems

The

police union (GdP)

likes to be progressive, fighting for women's rights and against violence against women.

Only yesterday the women's group of the GdP took a clear position - as an official supporter of the initiative “Stronger than violence” of the Federal Ministry of Women.

On International Women's Day in March, union members were photographed with posters demanding equality, and a GdP board member warned of a "rollback of gender roles" in the pandemic.

Enlarge image

Policewomen in Cologne

Photo: Oliver Berg / picture alliance / dpa

Nice actions, nice words.

For the public.

In the union, on the other hand, SPIEGEL research has shown that things are different.

In everyday working life, there is “a climate of misogyny” in some places, as my colleague Ann-Katrin Müller and my colleague Maik Baumgärtner describe in the new SPIEGEL.

According to its own statements, the world's largest police union is fighting

against allegations of sexism and bullying

, which are not consistently investigated internally.

The public prosecutor's office is now investigating a high-ranking union official.

You can read the whole story this morning before the new issue is published by SPIEGEL +.

Loser of the day ...

Enlarge image

ÖVP politician Pöttinger

Photo: Thomas Topf

... is

Laurenz Pöttinger.

If you don't have to know, you can quickly forget again after this episode.

Pöttinger, 56, is a member of the Austrian Chancellor Kurz party ÖVP and, in a speech in the National Council, drew up an, well, unusual bill on the corona crisis.

Pöttinger criticized the FPÖ for their demand for an increase in the number of intensive care beds - reason: “You know that about a third of all those who are in intensive care do not survive this disease.

In other words, its increase would be a substantial increase in the deaths in this country. ”And nobody really wants that.

According to “Standard”, Pöttinger later stated that his choice of words was “unfortunate” and that he only wanted to denounce the FPÖ's refusal to prevent prevention.

The latest news from the night

• USA help in search for missing submarine off Bali:

  The search for the missing military submarine and the 53-strong crew near the island of Bali has so far been unsuccessful.

  Now the US government is sending aircraft to the Indonesian Navy to help

• »This is art«:

  Under the hashtag #allesdichtmachen, a number of actors such as Jan Josef Liefers, Ulrich Tukur and Meret Becker express themselves ironically about the corona policy.

  What shoud that?

• Ex-frontman of the Bay City Rollers is dead:

  hits like "Bye Bye Baby" caused "Rollermania" in the seventies: For a few years the Bay City Rollers were among the greatest pop stars of all.

  Now her former singer Les McKeown has died

The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today

• Dropout Peter-Michael Diestel: "The CDU has a tragic path ahead of it"

• Beer - the fairy tale of German purity

• The parents' column on fear of loss: this is the best way to deal with it

• How vaccination skeptics are jeopardizing the comeback of the US economy

• Wirecard scandal: "Altmaier, Scholz and zu Guttenberg rode Angela Merkel into it"

Have a good day.

Heartily,

Your Philipp Wittrock