News of the day: Spain and the Netherlands as high incidence areas, agitation against the Greens, Alfred Biolek

1.

Due to the high number of corona infections, the federal government has declared the holiday countries Spain and the Netherlands to be high-incidence areas - and fewer Germans will probably leave for the affected countries

Many people are still traveling happily around the world, but in the next few weeks this, by and large, quite beautiful summer could turn into a summer of displeasure for some holidaymakers. The Robert Koch Institute in Berlin announced today that the federal government is classifying Spain and the Netherlands as areas of high incidence due to the sharp rise in the number of corona infections. This means that there is a

ten-day quarantine

obligation for travelers or

those returning to

travel

- if they have not been vaccinated or have recovered from Corona for up to six months. A submitted negative test can only release you from the quarantine obligation after five days.

In view of the fact that the number of infections has risen very significantly in many holiday countries, but fortunately not quite as strong in Germany, it seems like good news that the

European Medicines Agency Ema

today recommended that the moderna corona vaccine be released for children and adolescents aged twelve and over.

However, Moderna's vaccine is not the first, but the second recommended in the EU for the age group of 12 to 17 year olds.

The vaccine from Biontech / Pfizer already has EU-wide approval for this age group and has been able to be vaccinated in children and adolescents since June 7th.

Enlarge image

Corona vaccine from Moderna

Photo: Allen J. Schaben / Getty Images

But this will probably have little effect on the so-called vaccination progress in our country. The

Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko), which

is

relevant

for

vaccinations in Germany,

is apparently still not convinced of the benefits of corona vaccination for healthy children and adolescents. According to the German experts, the age group has a significantly lower risk of a severe or fatal course of Covid-19 compared to older adults. The vaccination is therefore only recommended in Germany for 12 to 17-year-olds

with certain previous illnesses

and those around whom people live who have a high risk of severe Covid 19 disease.

What will happen to travel after certain countries have been classified as risk areas? "This step was foreseeable, it didn't even surprise the Spaniards anymore," says my colleague Julia Stanek, who works as a travel editor in the life department. Spain will suffer from being classified as a high incidence area. "The major organizers have been reporting for more than two weeks now that there has been a

slump in bookings for Mallorca

- and also of cancellations." The

rapidly increasing number of new infections was

responsible for this

. "As bitter as it is for people in tourism - the reaction of consumers is understandable," says Julia. "Vacationers have to think carefully about whether they can afford quarantine after their return trip."

Will the Germans hold on to trips that have already been planned and paid for, and will they really get on a plane?

"It will depend on the circumstances in which you live," says Julia.

"Vaccinated and convalescent people can end the quarantine even after returning from a high-incidence area, but not their children and most of the young people and the many who have been vaccinated for the first time." Those who have to go to school or work immediately after vacation - and do not have the privilege to be able to work in the home office - is perhaps more likely to cancel or rebook the trip.

• Read the full story here: Ema recommends approval of the Moderna vaccine from the age of twelve

• Rising numbers of infections: Germany classifies Spain and the Netherlands as high incidence areas

2.

The Greens and Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock are exposed to particularly massive defamation on the Internet - also because they have fewer means to defend themselves in a party comparison.

The profession of

political influencer

and election campaign advisor is apparently still practiced by men in many countries around the world; In the crime novels of the American writer Ross Thomas, who died in 1995 and who himself worked for important

politicians as an election campaign manager

for a

long time

, I learned a lot about the often dirty tricks and slander of professional campaigners. From the former Donald Trump supporter

Steve Bannon

, who seems to me like a character from a Ross Thomas novel, comes the (translated) motto: Dump so much manure into the election arena that the others drown in it.

In Germany it is currently the Greens and their candidate for Chancellor

Annalena Baerbock

who

are being

treated

with filth, hatred and absurd allegations, especially on the Internet. A team of my colleagues describes the campaign the Greens are exposed to. Absurd threat scenarios are circulating online, for example, from a nationwide blackout that threatens in the event of a government determined by the Greens, or a fictitious Baerbock quote according to which the politician wants to ban dogs and cats as pets in order to save CO2 - a lie that apparently animated some particularly animal-loving Germans to the darkest threats. "It is unbelievable how many lies are circulating about us on the internet and how much hatred and agitation are against us," says the Greens managing director

Michael Kellner

cited in the history of colleagues.

Apparently most of the attacks come from the right-wing camp.

Enlarge image

Attacks on party leader Baerbock: A new dimension of lies, hatred and agitation

Photo:

Christoph Soeder / picture alliance / dpa

An evaluation by SPIEGEL of almost a million public

Facebook comments

from 341 extreme right-wing and conspiracy-ideological groups shows how differently the parties are attacked in this social network. Artificial intelligence was used to filter out those comments that contain potentially criminal hatred. In a comparison between the SPD, CDU and Greens, the smallest of the three parties receives

six times as much hatred

as the CDU People's Party and almost ten times as much as the Social Democrats. This is where

disinformation and agitation

hit

in the Greens a party that is not up to the crowd. The party headquarters has around 130 employees, but many were only recently brought in for the election campaign. Around 200 people work at the SPD headquarters, around 140 at the CDU - plus the CSU office in Munich with around 100 employees.

How strong could the

campaign slander

be?

"If you keep reading lies and malice, many will at some point believe that there will be something in it," says Ann Katrin-Müller, one of the co-authors of the SPIEGEL story.

“They're also powerful because the party headquarters are constantly busy with it and can't take care of the actual election campaign.

One cannot really speak of equal opportunities here.

If you then see that the only woman in the

race for the Chancellery

receives so much more hatred and agitation than the two male candidates, certainly not. "

• Read the whole story here: In the sights of the agitators

3.

The now deceased Alfred Biolek was an entertainer shining light on German television - and cultivated a friendly culture of conversation that we should definitely miss today

In the past few weeks, my SPIEGEL colleagues have

said a

lot of friendly things about

TV talker Markus Lanz

, because he sometimes questioned some of his many guests, including the lamentable Armin Laschet, grimly and aggressively.

Personally, I don't think much of such

flaunted talker aggressiveness

;

In the Laschet case, Lanz was one of those people for me who confused their alleged demonstration of journalistic competence with rudeness.

Enlarge image

Alfred Biolek: Among other things, he moderated the cooking program »alfredissimo!« For ARD.

Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd / picture alliance / dpa

In

any case, such a talker-aggro attitude would never have happened

to the great gentleman and famous TV chef

Alfred Biolek

.

My colleague Arno Frank pays tribute to Biolek, who has now died at the age of 87, as a host on television who never wanted to give the impression that he was smarter than his guests.

"The uncle stuck with him until he could make his peace with it," writes Arno, paying tribute to the entertainer's elegance and cosmopolitanism.

Biolek's ideas about television were "far removed from the smell of the Federal Republic" from an early age.

Biolek presented his talk show "Boulevard Bio" from 1991 to 2003 as a weekly, as he himself called it, "high mass of cultivated entertainment".

The format, as his colleague Arno describes it, »relied entirely on the magic of informal chat, which Biolek was so pleased with.

Anyone who came to Bio had nothing to fear.

So everyone came. "

• Read the obituary for Alfred Biolek here: The magic of informal chat

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What else is important today

• AfD fails with a vote of no confidence against Prime Minister Ramelow:

  The application in the Thuringian state parliament was considered a staging from the start: The AfD group around Björn Höcke had no chance with their vote of no confidence against Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow.

• Warning of masks from the Ministry of Health:

  Minister Spahn bought around ten million masks from a German manufacturer.

  Now they have to be withdrawn from circulation.

• Federal Cartel Office initiates proceedings against Facebook:

  The Federal Cartel Office has initiated further proceedings against the Internet giant.

  The authority is examining whether the planned takeover of a start-up in the USA falls within its scope.

• Two-year-old boy falls several meters deep into the Baltic Sea:

  A little boy was apparently placed on the railing of the Zinnowitz pier on Usedom for a photo.

  When the mother wanted to take pictures, the two-year-old fell more than five meters deep into the Baltic Sea.

My favorite story today: Breaking up a traditional company - How it was with Dr.

Oetker is now going on

All family quarrels are terrible, and those among rich people are often terribly funny too.

My colleague

Simon Book

describes without any glee and in great detail how it came about that one of the largest family businesses in Germany is now being split up - and why the split is the last chance to settle a bitter dispute between eight siblings.

The company's patriarch,

Rudolf-August Oetker,

died in 2007 at the age of 90 and inherited 12.5 percent of the company to his eight children from three marriages.

But, says Simon, “from the start the five older and three younger siblings could hardly agree on anything.

They neither solved the question of who

Oetker

where should lead, or what you want to earn money with in the future. "

• Read the full story here: How about Dr.

  Oetker is now going on

What we recommend today at SPIEGEL +

• Armin Laschet and the yes-but-principle:

  The flood disaster is Armin Laschet's acid test for the Chancellery.

  Between the ruins, the CDU politician wrestles with his new role, fails - and tries to save himself with promises.

  Do the citizens take it from him?

• How the IOC is abusing the Olympic idea:

  The International Olympic Committee is courting autocrats, and the Games are leaving scorched earth at the venues.

  And now: Olympia in the pandemic.

  The athletes are in a conflict.

• Will Ukraine soon be supplying us with green hydrogen?

  Nord Stream 2 has been decided.

  Now, with German help, Ukraine is to become an exporter of green energy.

  Expert Andreas Kuhlmann says why this project has to succeed.

• In the valley of ruins:

  More than a hundred people died when the Ahr lashed through their villages.

  Eyewitnesses and helpers tell SPIEGEL about the dramatic hours in which the water came and changed their lives forever.

Which is less important today

Enlarge image

Donald Trump speaking shortly before the attack on the US Capitol

Photo: JIM BOURG / REUTERS

• Bad memory for ex-president:

  Donald Trump, 75, the former US president who resigned in January of this year, demonstrated his idiosyncratic memory and his tendency to distort reality in an interview.

  According to an audio recording by Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, Trump called the angry mob that attacked the US Capitol on January 6th "lovingly."

  Literally, in a diction that sounds a bit like a stoned veteran of the hippie movement, he said: “And there was also a loving crowd, by the way.

  There was a lot of love.

  I've heard that from everyone. "

Typo of the day

, corrected in the meantime: "The Whale Rescue phone is no longer standing still, says the organization."

Cartoon of the Day:

Coronavirus Pursuit Race

And tonight?

Enlarge image

Amy Winehouse with her parents

Photo:

Gareth Davies / Getty Images

Could you see a concert by the singer

Amy Winehouse

,

who died ten years ago, on Arte

.

I found and think Amy Winehouse is great and I saw her once at a concert in Berlin, which the audience turned into an almost hysterical jubilee shortly after it began.

On the occasion of the anniversary of her death, the artist's parents

talked about

her daughter's life

in a

BBC documentary

about drug addiction, unhappy relationships and emotional distress

- and counter allegations that her family did not do enough to help Amy Winehouse.

I think it makes sense to focus on the art of this pop star instead of the details of a tragically and nonsensically ended life.

Arte is showing Winehouse today at 10:45 p.m. in "Live at Shepherd's Bush" during a 2007 London appearance.

A lovely evening.

Sincerely

yours, Wolfgang Höbel

Here you can order the "Lage am Abend" by email.