Corona and election campaigns: What we should actually talk about in the election campaign

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Posters of the candidates for chancellor and the candidate for chancellor

Photo: Arne Dedert / dpa

Last Wednesday, three words coined the Federal Press Conference of Health Minister Jens Spahn.

The switch on the Phoenix broadcaster started at the moment when the Minister of Health was explaining what could help against the fourth wave: "Vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate."

The roll call is not new, some speak of a record with a crack.

Spahn has often called for vaccinations.

Before the summer, he even did this weekly together with RKI boss Lothar Wieler every Friday.

Then Spahn stopped appearing in front of the cameras quite as regularly.

The picture had apparently worn out, the election campaign started, other topics dominated.

Now the topic was back, together with Wieler and two representatives of trade associations, Spahn presented the new vaccination campaign.

The message has remained the same, the vaccination rate of 62 percent with full vaccination protection is not very encouraging.

Germany lags far behind in vaccination rates in Europe.

It has to go up.

But how?

Vaccinations have long since come to people

The Ministry of Health is now calling for a vaccination week under the hashtag #Herewirdgeimpft, and the campaigns are listed on a website.

From drive-in vaccinations in Denzlingen to spontaneous vaccinations in clubs in Stuttgart.

This is not new either: the vaccinations have been said to have "come to people" for about three months.

Uncomplicated, unbureaucratic, in supermarket parking lots and in mosques.

Many municipalities organized and carried out this themselves.

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Experts then stated that the district vaccinations were not as effective as hoped. And so Berlin's Governing Mayor Michael Müller came to the conclusion last Tuesday that the vaccinations might not be as much possible as everyone is hoping. "We did a lot of educational work," he said. But things are going tough. "I'm now getting to a point where I think maybe we have exhausted what we can do as politics."

So is politics at an end?

At least it seems that politicians prefer to campaign, discuss future issues and meet an audience at the election booths that no longer wants to know anything about Corona.

In the electoral arenas, the questions are mostly directed towards the future: How will the candidate deal with the consequences of the pandemic?

But right now?

Where does it matter to prevent the possible fourth wave in autumn?

Apart from appeals: no report.

"You can't stop fighting pandemics just because you're in campaign mode"

Anton Hofreiter, leader of the Greens in the Bundestag

The candidates Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Armin Laschet (CDU) categorically rule out compulsory vaccinations and a new lockdown. The Greens remain in combat mode: Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock leaves the issue of lockdown and vaccination in some professional groups open for the future. The leader of the Greens in the Bundestag, Anton Hofreiter, recently accused the federal government: "You cannot stop fighting pandemics just because you are in election campaign mode." Green health politician Janosch Dahmen said in an interview with SPIEGEL: "It's about human lives, not about votes."

But the warnings of other well-known health politicians such as Karl Lauterbach (SPD) no longer seem to get through.

The Chancellor candidates promise classroom instruction in schools - and ignore how the quarantine cases are developing in North Rhine-Westphalia, for example.

The state health ministers limit the quarantine to a few people instead of discussing prevention.

They do not enforce PCR pool tests in all schools and daycare centers in Germany, although the RKI has been recommending the measure for months.

The same still applies to air filters.

"I consider the idea of ​​going into autumn without measures to be naive."

Christian Drosten, Chief Virologist Charité

The statements by experts are no less alarming than in the past. At the press conference with Spahn, Wieler warned against a "brilliant course" of the fourth wave if the vaccination rates should not go up drastically. "We as a society still have around 60 days to avoid a harsh winter," says Biontech boss Ugur Şahin in an interview with SPIEGEL. Virologist Christian Drosten assumes that there will have to be restrictions in autumn. "I consider the idea of ​​going into autumn without measures to be naive," he said in the Coronavirus Update podcast. He also refers to contact reduction.

Instead, it was decided in the Bundestag that the seven-day incidence is no longer the most important indicator of the pandemic - in future the hospitalization rates per week and 100,000 inhabitants will count.

If you drive over the Hamburg Reeperbahn on a Saturday, you get the feeling that Corona never existed: people are crowding into the bars, they are driving around the area in party buses again.

The pandemic is now often described as one of the unvaccinated.

Most of the people who end up in the intensive care unit with a corona infection are not vaccinated.

But whoever suspects them to be just corona deniers is wrong.

There are still many people who are not adequately informed.

False myths still circulate, such as the assumption of infertility through vaccination, which has long been refuted.

Where is the rappers' campaign against Corona?

These people have to be reached, informed and animated.

Not only with threats, but also through campaigns.

Unfortunately, the idea of ​​the Federal Ministry of Health with David Hasselhoff and a new edition of Howard Carpendale's "Hello again" didn't seem to be quite right.

Where's a joint appeal from stars like Loredana, Shirin David and RIN - all rappers that younger people like to hear?

Where are the football stars and actors who do not simply speak out against restrictions on fundamental rights, but declare the safety of the vaccination?

The vaccination also ensures that they can go back to work without restrictions.

Why do politicians in the election campaign not dare to only allow those who have been vaccinated and tested in restaurants and theaters nationwide?

For weeks now, the federal states have been lost in discussions about the so-called 2G rule.

In Hamburg, for example, 2G is possible, in Baden-Württemberg it is mandatory from Monday onwards from a certain hospitalization rate, in Rhineland-Palatinate such a rule applies, in Berlin it could be decided on Tuesday.

Election campaigners and Prime Minister Laschet, on the other hand, do not consider such a measure to be necessary for North Rhine-Westphalia.

Tests are to be paid for from mid-October, but nobody wants to enforce the 2G issue.

Even 3G - vaccinated, recovered, tested - does not apply across the board.

It seems as if politicians are afraid of a bad mood.

Not only do you risk the further spread of the virus.

They also run the risk of the pandemic falling at their feet again soon.

At a time when everyone is probably involved in coalition negotiations.

They let the time before that pass.

Yet again.