1. Many words, little effect
If over 65,000 new corona infections a day, overcrowded intensive care units and an impending lockdown are not an epidemic situation of national importance, what then?
Nevertheless, the majority of traffic lights in the Bundestag today approved changes to the Infection Protection Act.
This means that the regulations on the "epidemic situation of national scope" will expire on November 25th.
However, they will be replaced by a new Infection Protection Act.
Accordingly, among other things, the 3G rule at work and in public transport should apply nationwide.
For nursing homes and clinics, test obligations for employees and visitors are to be anchored.
The law now has to be approved by the Federal Council, which will hold a special session on Friday.
However, the Union-led countries threaten to reject it if they are no longer given the opportunity to restrict and close.
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Photo:
ANNEGRET HILSE / Reuters
Everything has actually been said about the corona pandemic, which seems to get out of control every day in Germany. Just not from everyone yet. For days, state politicians, prime ministers, federal ministers, traffic light coalitionists and members of the Union have been accusing each other of who is responsible for the disaster because they acted too late in the past few weeks or did not want to do enough in the coming weeks.
These battles full of empty words of power stunned me.
My colleague from the SPIEGEL capital city office, Valerie Höhne, also says that she is “very at a loss” in view of today's debate in the Bundestag.
"It would be nice if all democratic parties worked together in this corona situation." Instead, they looked "primarily at their party-political advantages, disadvantages, their piece of the pie."
In the afternoon, the federal-state round on the corona situation started.
According to SPIEGEL information, Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the meeting with an urgent appeal.
"We're running full," said Merkel accordingly.
In the fight against Corona, the "instrument box is not complete".
The union-led states want to enforce nationwide 2G rules and a compulsory vaccination for employees in care and hospitals in the federal-state round.
Read the latest developments in our news blog here
2. Booster for the third vaccination
“Intensive care unit is torture.
A patient is left with the struggle for oxygen or death. «These are the words of Michael Hallek, Director of Clinic I for Internal Medicine at the University Clinic in Cologne.
Currently, 3376 people in the intensive care units of German hospitals are struggling to get air connected to tubes and anesthetized with painkillers.
Many of these severe Covid-19 courses would have been avoidable.
For example through a vaccination.
But people who are doubly infected can also suffer a breakthrough in vaccination.
On the other hand, boosters, i.e. a third batch of vaccine, help.
Today the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) decided to recommend a booster vaccination to all over 18-year-olds.
The booster should take place six months after the last vaccination, but a shortening is possible.
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Biontech vaccination in a provisional pop-up center in Tübingen
Photo:
Marijan Murat / dpa
"The booster vaccination is particularly important for risk groups because if the vaccination breakthrough they have a higher risk of a severe course," write my colleagues in their FAQ on boosters. They answer the following questions, among others: How useful are antibody tests before the booster vaccination? Can the third-party corona vaccination and the flu vaccination be given at the same time? Do we need to get vaccinated every few months now? Which vaccine is boosted with? And, very important: Where can I get my third vaccination?
Vaccinations are a matter of the country.
In Bavaria and Berlin, for example, the vaccination centers are open, in Rhineland-Palatinate and Hamburg they are closed.
If you try to get an appointment with your family doctor today, you are often put off until January.
My colleague from SPIEGEL's foreign affairs department, Mathieu von Rohr, is not the only one who asks himself: “Why aren't thousands of additional vaccination buses driving through the country right now?
Why haven't pharmacies been vaccinating for a long time?
Where are the pop-up vaccination centers?
Why are there hardly any vaccination appointments with general practitioners?
Why is politics failing again?
Why don't we make it? "
In the meantime, the President of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Lothar Wieler, is missing the words and the answers.
"Everyone and everyone" is now needed to vaccinate, he appealed in an incendiary speech on the corona situation.
See the full video with Lothar Wieler here: »There is an emergency in our country«
3. Dirty instead of illegal
It was one of the big upsets of spring: The CSU politicians Georg Nüßlein and Alfred Sauter were accused of bribery because they filled their pockets in the corona pandemic.
Nüßlein is said to have received 660,000 euros for brokering mask shops, and Sauter even received 1.24 million euros.
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Georg Nüßlein
Photo:
Soeren Stache / dpa
Now the Munich Higher Regional Court has ruled on the complaints of the two as well as a co-accused entrepreneur from the CSU environment - and largely agreed with them. The judges found: In terms of criminal law, the dubious deals were not bribery. The corresponding paragraph 108e of the Criminal Code should be interpreted narrowly, the court said in a statement: According to the unequivocal will of the legislature, a mandate holder does not make himself a criminal offense by accepting unjustified pecuniary benefits if - as in the present case - he only exercises the authority of his mandate or uses his contacts to influence decisions by extra-parliamentary bodies, e.g. authorities and ministries. "
My colleague Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt sums up the judgment as follows: "The mask deals were dirty, they weren't illegal."
The existing anti-corruption laws have turned out to be toothless.
The new Bundestag should carefully examine the paragraphs again.
Because for the reputation of the politicians, the case was poison - even if Nüßlein and Sauter can now get past an indictment.
Read more here: Munich Higher Regional Court sees no bribery at Nüßlein and Sauter
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What else is important today
Canada declares a state of emergency because of floods:
Around 18,000 people are fleeing the water: The Canadian government is sending the air force to British Columbia to help with evacuations.
Farmers save their cows from drowning.
US Congress reprimands Trump supporters for violent videos:
Blood splatters in the comic video - and high-ranking Democrats go to the ground: Because Paul Gosar had distributed a brutal clip on Twitter, the Republican now received a rare public reprimand.
He pretends to be innocent.
Almost 40 percent of the apprenticeship positions remain vacant:
Many companies looked in vain for apprentices this year.
Smaller businesses and the construction industry are particularly affected.
Public prosecutor's office is investigating the DFB for Adidas donations:
tax
proceedings
remain an ongoing issue for the German Football Association.
Now the Frankfurt public prosecutor's office moved to the headquarters of Adidas - and took documents with them that should shed light on deals with the DFB.
Sales stop for book by Annalena Baerbock:
The book was criticized because of allegations of plagiarism.
Actually, the head of the Greens wanted to revise her work.
Now she has made a different decision.
Ukraine sends more than 8,500 police officers to the border with Belarus:
The government in Kiev fears that migrants will be sent from the Belarusian-Polish border to the border with Ukraine.
Thousands of security forces are now supposed to guard the region: "We are equipped for anything."
Special flight brings refugees back to Iraq:
Hundreds of refugees who had stayed at the Polish border in Belarus have been flown back to their homeland.
Ruler Lukashenko made an offer to the EU.
Corona crisis costs the Federal Agency 52 billion: The
consequences of the corona burden the Federal Employment Agency.
She has already spent 52 billion euros on short-time work benefits and other benefits - and could need another federal grant next year.
My favorite story today:
golden cream puff
When it comes to food, people are glossed over and lied to as much as they can.
"Packaging is often half empty or it shows green willows for products that come from food factories and that have never been lit by daylight before opening," writes my colleague Matthias Kaufmann.
"And anyone who can correctly interpret the long, tiny lists of ingredients in many supermarket products must actually be a food chemist."
The non-profit organization Foodwatch, which cares about consumer interests when it comes to food, reminds every year when it selects the “golden cream puff”: “Which product is the most brazen advertising lie of the year?” Is the initial question.
In the coming weeks the public will vote on goldener-windpaket.de which advertising claim they consider to be the most dishonest.
Matthias presented the cream puff candidates today.
Among other things, there are coffee capsules that supposedly decompose in the garbage.
Or an environmentally friendly mineral water that is sold in environmentally unfriendly plastic bottles.
My favorite are Wunderland fruit gums full of vitamins.
After all, the manufacturer does not claim that they protect against Corona.
What we recommend today at SPIEGEL +
The death of Ferhat Unvar:
The Hanau assassin shot around in a kiosk, Ferhat Unvar dragged himself seriously injured behind the counter.
Could he have been saved?
The public prosecutor's office checked the behavior of several police officers.
How St. Pauli suddenly learned something new: to win!
FC St. Pauli has developed from being relegated to being promoted in an astonishingly short time.
When asked how you end up with a very unusual team of coaches and the discovery of ambition.
"Beethoven's fifth with a disco beat: I don't understand something like that":
Kent Nagano will be 70 years old these days.
What can you learn from the world-famous conductor about rap, the internet and the appeal of the opera world to young people?
Plug-in hybrids endanger climate goals:
They are heavy, consume more fuel, but are subsidized lavishly: plug-in hybrids.
A study warns that the success of rolling sham packs is slowing down electromobility.
Which is less important today
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Photo:
Diego Ribas / IMAGO / ZUMA Wire
A German won the World Poker Championship in Las Vegas.
He was wearing a very original mouthguard model with a tiger pattern in rainbow colors.
At the final table, the 31-year-old Koray Aldemir from Berlin prevailed after 223 hands against the American George Holmes.
He won eight million dollars in prize money.
Typo of the day
, corrected in the meantime: "Not all of the training positions that companies would have liked to be filled have also been reported to the Federal Agency for."
Cartoon of the day:
Christmas wishes
And tonight?
Lena Stahl's fantastic debut feature film »My Son« has been shown in the cinema since today.
It's about love, about fear and about the great art of every education: letting go.
Anke Engelke as a worried mother Marlene and Jonas Dassler as her high-spirited child Jason set out in the old Volvo on the trip from Berlin to a Swiss rehabilitation clinic.
20-year-old Jason had a serious skateboard accident, but doesn't want Marlene to help him.
That is the starting point for this unusual road movie (see the trailer here).
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Mother and son (symbol photo)
Photo: Anna Artemenko / Stocksy United
There are scenes full of absurd comedy in it, a lot of human warmth, pretty truths about love, without even one of them being suitable as a flat calendar saying. You can definitely spend the 90 minutes profitably as a father or daughter. The film reconciled me with my being a young mother. Because, as I wrote in the last parents' column, you can recognize many of your own needs in it.
When my six-year-old wants to cycle through the neighborhood with his two-year-old friend, I shout: "Put your helmet on!" Before I start my silent prayer.
So far, wishful thinking has worked well.
I very much hope that the principle of hope also works with the Corona defense.
It would have been helpful if Stiko had also given a recommendation for child vaccinations today.
A lovely evening.
And stay healthy,
your Anna Clauss
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