Woman with mask
Photo:
Michael Weber IMAGEPOWER / imago images / Michael Weber
Goodbye Corona, the crisis is over.
At least for me.
The virus can do me.
Freedom Day!
A party in the Cuba Club in Münster convinced me. About 380 people celebrated there at the beginning of September; they did not wear masks and danced without any distance. A few days later, 85 of them were infected with the coronavirus, more than one in five. The health department found out: The party was a superspreading event. But those affected were doing pretty well. Some reported mild symptoms. Others only found out through a test that they had been infected. According to the health department, none of them had a difficult course, a surprising result, even though most of the visitors were young.
The party in the Cuba Club was a 2G event, admission only for vaccinated and convalescent people.
The organizer had checked in an exemplary manner whether the vaccination certificate and ID card matched.
Many also had the Corona warning app installed on their cell phones.
"Today we can say that it was an informed and vaccinated group," says the head of the health department.
The case gives me two lessons.
The first: For those who have been vaccinated, the pandemic is practically over;
Corona loses its horror even under extremely virus-friendly tight dance conditions.
It doesn't seem to matter which substance is injected with.
More than half of those infected from Münster were vaccinated with Biontech, the others mixed with Johnson & Johnson, Moderna or the combinations AstraZeneca / Biontech and AstraZeneca / Moderna.
The second insight is that it is only a matter of time before people who have not been vaccinated become infected. There is no chance to hide behind the others, to disappear into the herd of the vaccinated. The day will come when all people in Germany will either be vaccinated or infected once, the virologist Christian Drosten predicted months ago.
I think we should accept that there are now two groups with regard to Corona, apart from a few special cases.
One group, vaccinated, no longer needs protection, the other, unvaccinated, does not want any.
A free society can withstand this;
Apart from health and care professions, I am against compulsory vaccinations.
There is a right to self-determination, even to kill yourself.
But that also means that we should no longer set up prohibitions and rules that are superfluous for one group and patronizing for the other.
The state is not a supernanny.
The head of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, Andreas Gassen, proposed this week to end all corona requirements by October 30th.
You can argue about the date, but in principle Gassen is right.
I would be there sooner too.
I'll see you at the bar.