The morning situation: is compulsory vaccination the last resort out of the crisis?

The corona vaccination is coming

Promised, broken - in politics that usually doesn't bode well.

We journalists then like to verbally attack the chancellors, ministers and party leaders who have not kept their word and who have disappointed the expectations of bona fide voters.

In the

, which are now beginning will probably come in 2022, I have to make an exception.

Sure, many top German politicians - including those who are still chancellor and soon to be chancellor - are to blame for their predicament themselves.

But admittedly, I was also skeptical and believed that the state-prescribed injection was not needed. We all want to get out of the Corona Depression again.

Believed wrong.

Quite a few skeptics are likely to grumble and submit to their fate if a vaccination is compulsory. With the rest, which are still hallucinating about implanted microchips and the Great Reset, nobody has to speak of an impending social division any more. The conspiracy ideologues have split themselves off.

And so almost all parties are now giving up their resistance to the compulsory vaccination.

Even the FDP is likely to agree with a majority in an open vote in the Bundestag.

Of course, that won't slow down the fourth wave anymore.

But do we want to run into the fifth with seeing eyes?

Do we want the eternal state of emergency?

• The fairest solution: compulsory vaccination for everyone (comment)

Late insight

Does

plea for compulsory vaccination

the

? The future Chancellor has at least done cleverly in trying to finally get on the offensive. In the federal-state switch he let the complaining and demanding Union side come up by presenting his own proposals for stricter anti-corona measures including a vaccination requirement. In the end, even Markus Söder praised: "We are heading in the right direction."

But the truth also includes:

Maybe too late. And possibly for tactical reasons. Out of

, he initially had the Infection Protection Act streamlined. Now it is to be improved for the second time, also because the Karlsruhe constitutional judges subsequently approved the regulations of the federal emergency brake from the spring and summer. Scholz had once negotiated the emergency brake, but the FDP, his new partner, was against it among the plaintiffs.

Only now does Scholz trust himself to be more confident

, and the liberals are assisting dutifully, all proposals are "of course coordinated with the FDP" and find their "unreserved support".

Valuable time will pass before the new rules take effect: another Prime Minister's Conference on Thursday, Bundestag, Bundesrat.

It will probably take another two weeks until everything is through.

You could have had it earlier.

• Olaf Scholz in the federal-state group: The corona test

Corona everyday life in the intensive care unit

If you want to know what's really going on in a corona intensive care unit, I recommend

today

.

For two days, my colleague Regina Steffens and my colleague Robert Hauspurg were able to accompany the senior physician Daniel Zickler in his work at the Berlin Charité.

It is only the second time since the pandemic began that the clinic has granted a team of reporters this access.

This

resulted in

.

My listening tip for today:

• The intensive care unit at the Charité: where the worst corona cases end up

Triell the CDU chief candidate

Corona and the traffic lights have pushed the power struggle a little into the background - but rest assured:

Helge Braun, Friedrich Merz and Norbert Röttgen vie for the favor of the members, who can vote on the successor of the hapless Armin Laschet from Saturday on.

Tonight there will be the Triell, the direct meeting of the three would-be bosses at a so-called town hall in the Konrad-Adenauer-Haus.

Because of the infection situation, only a good two dozen selected women and men with a party book are allowed to be there live.

Others could submit questions beforehand.

The event shouldn't be really exciting under these conditions.

Since the digital solo formats organized by the CDU also offered rather tired job interviews, one has to ask the question:

In any case, she shouldn't help the outsiders.

There are no indications that Norbert Röttgen and Helge Braun have awakened a real spirit of optimism in the Union these days.

Favorite Merz has not exactly set off a firework of future ideas, but at least the otherwise pithy conservative suddenly tries to involve the more liberal Christian Democrats.

In the end, nobody knows exactly what makes the members tick.

But my colleague Kevin Hagen, who is observing the CDU for us, even believes

the member survey is possible, "even if it no longer triggers the great euphoria of earlier times".

• Merz's candidacy for the CDU chairmanship: Showtime, Part III

Listen: The climate is changing

Ice sheets are melting, forests are drying up, coral reefs are dying - global warming is throwing nature out of its natural balance.

Scientists warn that global warming can no longer be controlled when certain points have been reached and this balance is downright tilted.

Then our climate could change like a house of cards collapses from which a card is drawn.

But can our climate really "tip over" just like that?

How crucial are the "tipping points" and how close are they?

What would the consequences be and could they be prevented?

We ask ourselves that in the

.

This time my colleagues Sebastian Spallek and Kurt Stukenberg have the climate physicist Torsten Albrecht from the Institute for Climate Impact Research in Potsdam as guests.

• Click here for the climate report podcast: What happens if our climate changes

Winner of the day ...

... are Marthe Wandou, Wladimir Sliwjak, Freda Huson and the Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment.

You will all be awarded the Alternative Nobel Prize, the rebellious little brother of the famous Nobel Prize, at an online ceremony today in Stockholm.

It is actually called the Right Livelihood Award and is presented by the foundation of the same name.

Marthe Wandou, a lawyer from Cameroon, has been fighting sexual violence against children for decades.

Vladimir Sliwjak is a Russian environmentalist, the Canadian Freda Huson campaigns for the rights of indigenous communities, and the Indian organization LIFE legally supports communities in protecting their natural resources against seemingly overpowering corporations.

Read here why this year's winners deserve the award.

The latest news from the night

• Seven-day incidence falls for the second day in a row:

  The Robert Koch Institute has registered 446 new deaths related to the coronavirus within 24 hours.

  According to RKI boss Wieler, the full extent of the fourth wave will only become clear in a few months

• CNN suspends star presenter:

  Chris Cuomo is out of his job for the time being.

  He is said to have defended his brother Andrew Cuomo more closely than previously known - who had resigned as governor of New York after allegations of sexual harassment

• These are the most expensive cities in the world:

  In which city does life cost the most?

  The British “Economist” group investigates this question every year.

  This year Paris loses its top position.

  And Berlin is slipping down significantly

The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today

• Planned media platform: This is how Trump rips off the citizens

• Booster trial in Hamburg: You want to vaccinate us, but you can't get it done?

• From Thursday in the cinema: Jesus, Maria and sex

• Why the Bronze Age Changed the World: The Mixture of Power

I wish you a good start to the day.

Heartfelt,

Your Philipp Wittrock