“Completely crazy year”: Why Holetschek feels “cautious optimism” about Omikron in children

Created: 12/23/2021, 06:22 AM

From: Sebastian Horsch

Mission Corona: Klaus Holetschek took over the post of Health Minister a year ago in the middle of the pandemic.

© Sven Simon / Imago

Bavaria's Minister of Health, Klaus Holetschek, reveals in an interview with Merkur how he celebrates Christmas and what he says about Omikron and the fourth syringe.

Munich - When Bavaria's Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU *) came to the Merkur editorial staff on Tuesday evening (December 21), the Prime Minister's discussions with the Chancellor were taking place at the same time.

Omikron, the highly contagious Corona * variant, keeps the world in suspense before the holidays.

The big question is what to expect in Bavaria.

Mr. Holetschek, how are you celebrating Christmas with your family this year?

As traditional as every year.

Our children are coming home.

My son comes to us from Vienna, my daughter comes from Augsburg.

My mother will be there and so will my father-in-law.

In the afternoon we attend the family service and afterwards we eat together.

And everyone does a test?

Definitely.

My mother is 90 years old, my father-in-law is 86. We are all boosted too, but safety is our top priority.

Corona: This is how Bavaria's Minister of Health Holetschek celebrates Christmas

In all honesty: When friends ring your doorbell on the holidays, do you first ask for evidence of a test?

Our friends are all vaccinated and take the virus seriously.

I assume that they would have tested themselves in such a situation.

I don't know if I would have the test shown to me because I trust my friends.

And I think it is very important to maintain friendships in these times.

I think we have to keep our distance and still allow closeness.

And that includes giving friends the feeling at Christmas that they are welcome - albeit in a different context than before Corona.

You have been talking about an impending "Omicron Wall" for a few days.

What is in store for us?

I looked at the modeling of the experts *.

It is not yet possible to say for sure whether the worst case forecast will actually occur.

But remember: We are still in a situation where our hospitals are still at their limit.

The nursing staff have been in great demand for the last two years.

If a new event with such great impact were to occur, then we would be faced with the greatest challenge in this pandemic to date.

Bavaria's Minister of Health Holetschek "doesn't want to talk about lockdown again"

So are we threatened with a new lockdown soon?

I don't want to talk about lockdown again.

The key is to find the right level to protect people.

And now I don't want to rule anything out, because the pandemic has shown that one may then have to revise oneself.

For now I can only tell you that the situation is serious and the contact restrictions are necessary.

We then have to reassess what we see in a week or two.

Do you drive on sight?

Yes, we reassess the situation every day.

For this we have, among other things, the Federal Expert Council and our Bavarian LGL, whose monitoring is always running in the background.

How dangerous is Omikron to children?

I am currently having a lot of conversations with experts in order to get a better idea of ​​them.

There are still very different assessments of why there were sometimes more severe courses in children and adolescents in other countries.

With regard to Germany, I perceive a cautious optimism that the conditions here are more positive.

We have a good structure of paediatricians and children's clinics.

The Bavarian Health Minister Klaus Holetschek vaccinating.

© Sammy Minkoff / Imago

Klaus Holetschek: Coronavirus "keeps cheating us"

There are still many unanswered questions: Don't politicians have to be careful not to scare people too much?

It's not about fear, it's about realism.

We can't hide the fact that certain things look critical at the moment.

Simply "close your eyes and go through" is not possible.

We are at a fork in the road with the pandemic, which may become very severe.

We have to tell people that too.

And by the way, I have the feeling that a lot of people see that and don't always wait for what the politicians say, but instead reduce contacts themselves.

Boosted ones apparently have good protection against omicrons, at least against severe gradients.

Can those who have done everything politicians want them to hope for more freedom?

I know of course that there are people who say: I have now been vaccinated several times and I have been told that is enough.

But the fact is that the virus keeps cheating us and we notice: It's just not enough.

At the moment, boosters * where the 2G plus rule otherwise applies, at least don't need an additional test.

But we have to watch carefully when the higher level of protection provided by the third vaccination wears off.

If that happens and we really need a fourth vaccination to be protected, I can't ignore it.

Will the vaccination be compulsory?

CSU health minister Holetschek does not want to "rule anything out"

You are in favor of compulsory vaccination.

Does it have to apply to everyone, or is it also conceivable that people aged 60 and over should be vaccinated?

I wouldn't rule anything out here either.

What science tells us is also crucial.

But it is important to me that there will be a general compulsory vaccination *.

Because the facility-related compulsory vaccination, which will mainly affect certain professional groups from March, divides.

I notice this in many conversations with nurses.

They see themselves increasingly in the role that the overwhelming burden of the pandemic is placed on them.

They repeatedly point out the stresses and strains of care and, among other things, call for the salary in intensive care to be doubled.

The subject is at the top of my political agenda.

And this is really not a show.

Because if we cannot achieve fundamental changes in care, we are threatened with end.

Then in 10 to 15 years we will no longer have any people caring for others.

We really have to get on with it now.

That's why I also like some of the points in the Ampel coalition agreement - for example, that one billion euros is to be invested in care.

Bavaria's Minister of Health Klaus Holetschek: "The traffic light has to deliver now"

In general, one hears relatively few party political attacks on the traffic light government in Berlin from you.

I think it is wrong that the traffic light * has lifted the epidemic emergency.

That was the wrong signal at the wrong time.

But now is the time to join forces and not get tangled up in party politics.

Even so, we clearly state what we expect.

The traffic light must now deliver and show where it is going.

Let's get back to Bavaria: there is a charge that under your leadership the LGL has falsified the weekly published incidence of unvaccinated people.

A steep template for lateral thinkers ...

Based on its technically justified opinion at the time, the LGL added the number of those with an unknown vaccination status to the group of unvaccinated persons.

You did that - just like other countries - because you realized that it was the closest thing to reality.

Due to delays in reporting, the group with an unclear status has grown larger and larger, creating an ever larger gap in the informative value.

We learned something new and that's why we have now suspended the calculation.

Regardless of this, it is clear that we have to improve the data basis in the pandemic as a whole.

And LGL President Walter Jonas has to take his hat off ...

The fact that Walter Jonas will become regional president of the Upper Palatinate * in February was not just brought on the rails in the last two weeks.

He helped us a lot at the LGL.

And with his successor, the physician Prof. Christian Weidner, the LGL will take a further development step.

Klaus Holetschek (CSU): First reinforcement, then boss

Klaus Holetschek (CSU) has already seen politics from different angles. He was a member of the Bundestag in Berlin (1998 to 2002) and mayor of Bad Wörishofen (2002 to 2013). As State Secretary for Construction, Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) finally brought the member of the state parliament and ombudsman to the state government in 2020. Shortly thereafter, Holetschek moved on to strengthen the then Minister Melanie Huml (CSU) in the health department, where the 57-year-old feels politically at home. At the beginning of this year, Söder finally made Holetschek a minister there. The lawyer lives privately with his wife Birgit in Memmingen in Upper Swabia. The two have been married for more than 30 years and have two grown children.

You became Minister of Health a year ago in the middle of the pandemic.

Have you only been under constant pressure since then?

It was actually a completely crazy first year for me.

One is partly driven by the developments, especially since I also took over the chairmanship of the health ministers' conference of the federal states.

There you come to points where you feel your own limits and ask yourself: What is actually happening to you here?

And you can also see that the employees in the ministry come to those points where it becomes too much.

And yet we all pull ourselves up again and again.

Do you think that during your tenure as Minister of Health you will deal with another main topic than Corona?

Yes I think so.

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