Against the wall
Read one more time about Corona, then the weekend will start, I promise. Yesterday, a Lage reader asked whether there could be at least a single Lage issue without comments on the pandemic. I'm really sorry, but how? Something always happens. Admittedly, yesterday's Prime Minister's Conference in the Chancellery doesn't need to be mentioned too much. All resolutions can be found here, the scenes behind the scenes can be read here. At the press conference, Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke in a very low voice about the situation and warned that the infection rate could rise dramatically in the next few days.
What is to be feared is not an omicron wave, but an omicron wall that piles up almost overnight. If the occasion weren't so serious, the second part of the press conference would have been entertaining, in which NRW Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) and Berlin's mayor Franziska Giffey insisted between the lines about the question of how good Chancellor Scholz is now as a crisis manager may be. Does he have to show more "speed and leadership" (Wüst), or does he shine through his "stringent leadership" (Giffey)?
In addition, the situation chronicler obligation unfortunately also requires a reference to the Corona demonstrations today, more precisely to the locations: Hamburg, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Trier, Magdeburg and Erfurt.
Did you notice?
Many West German cities are included.
Hendrik Wüst also pointed this out at the MPK press conference: The protests are anything but a purely Thuringian or Saxon phenomenon, but at least the counter-event is not a purely West German one: In Erfurt, for example, a rally by the »Grandmas against the Right« is planned for today , and a "human chain for consideration" in the pandemic.
Reach in the toilet
Almost every one of the anti-coronavirus demos this weekend is against mandatory vaccination, with slogans like "My body is mine." But if that's just that, the organizers could withdraw their registrations after yesterday's press conference. Chancellor Olaf Scholz confirmed that he himself and all of the Prime Ministers supported this step. But unlike in the past, he no longer wants to commit himself to a point in time when the compulsory vaccination would be introduced. My colleague Lothar Gorris listed clever arguments against the project in his leading article. I would venture a bet that the traffic light coalition will let the project peter out.
On the other hand, where Germany really has some catching up to do in the fight against corona is the analysis of our wastewater.
Because virus particles appear in the sewage works when the unsuspecting producers of this wastewater are not even thinking of a doctor's appointment.
Science editor Hilmar Schmundt reports that other countries have long been using the early warning system of their sewage treatment plants to track the spread of virus variants.
It sounds like an unsavory topic, but Hilmar describes as clearly as it is entertaining that in Canada, for example, in corona debates, sewage data has long been included in the debates about school closings as a matter of course.
A year ago, the EU Commission asked the member states to introduce such monitoring systems.
In Germany, a pilot project is now planned for February, which will be funded with a modest 2.9 million euros.
The nice thing about such monitoring: It doesn't even violate German data protection law.
Recording of corona case numbers: Why our wastewater is the better pandemic early warning system
The very real hatred
If you don't want to think about Corona, maybe you are interested in what's going on at the AfD?
The parliamentary group has shrunk as a result of the poorer election result, the group has lost three more members since the election, and above all, the party is literally missing a sparkling topic (luckily, one is tempted to write).
Even in a right-wing party, some people find it difficult to join the corona protests, which are attended by violent right-wing extremists.
All of this depresses the mood, reports our AfD reporter Ann-Katrin Müller.
Members of the parliamentary group complained about the poor work of the personnel department and that the parliamentary group leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla did not manage to organize their people more professionally.
Interestingly enough, three employees of the social media department of the parliamentary group have also resigned, including the leader who complains about the "humanly unacceptable" dealings in the group.
Now the humanly unacceptable handling is one of the things at the AfD, especially in the area of social media.
In the political arena, there are hardly any actors with a comparable reach and skill for launching online campaigns.
In my experience as an ex-AfD reporter, it is seldom official accounts of the party or its MPs and officials who explicitly spread anger or hatred.
It's more like a tap, you throw a stone into the virtual water.
The rest, the insults or threats, are done by the followers, the host of user accounts without real names, perhaps with a wolf or a shark as a profile picture, or a German war flag.
What these people comment on the AfD's posts on Facebook is then moderated more or less listlessly by their social media teams.
For our anniversary edition - you will remember, SPIEGEL had a milestone birthday - our columnist Margarete Stokowski dealt with "online hatred" and, as usual, she sums up the problem succinctly:
I personally don't care about hatred. When you're a political writer, you either get used to it or you stop and do something different. ... What one cannot ignore, however, is when people announce that hatred will be followed up with deeds. And that brings us to a central problem: "Hate online" does not necessarily stay "online". This becomes clear at the latest when people arrange to meet on Telegram for torch-lit marches in front of houses or stream live how they "visit" someone at work and harass them.
The problem is not new.
But the pandemic has made anger more real, tangible, palpable, and this brutalization is a frightening development.
Oh dear, I'm just noticing this issue of Lage is terribly grim.
Next week my colleague Dirk Kurbjuweit will certainly be setting happier topics for you.
"Alternative for amateurs": This is how they grumble at the AfD about their own party
Swastika on the door, dead birds in the mailbox. Hatred becomes extremely dangerous when it leaves the network
Winner of the day ...
... is Katja Kipping, ex-party leader of the Left and new Berlin Senator for Integration, Labor and Social Affairs. After the federal election, her party was stuck in a valley of tears at the federal level and only made it back to the Bundestag with a bang. For Kipping, who spent her nine years as party leader and more than 15 years in the Bundestag mostly with internal trench warfare, the call to rescue in the Berlin Senate came.
Kipping had tried to make her party more professional, more modern and younger, reports Timo Lehmann, who observes the Left for us: »She painted a more differentiated picture of the GDR, not a glorifying one. She wanted to strip the left of the image of those who understand Russia and expressed herself more critical of Moscow. She also introduced new topics, spoke about the balance of power between the sexes and the challenge of climate change. "This brought Kipping the resolute resistance of party friends like Sahra Wagenknecht, who even made her attitude a bestseller (" The Self-Righteous ").
Kipping would only have called Wagenknecht's group "Russia Today" because of their frequent appearances on the Russian propaganda television station RT. This faction of the left is likely to watch today's livestream of the annual »XVII. Switch on the International Rosa Luxemburg Conference «, which this year has the motto» Hands off Russia and China «. The timing for this appeal could hardly be worse at a time when Russia is getting its hands dirty in Ukraine or when cracking down on citizens' protests in Kazakhstan.
Although the Kazakh ruler Kassym-Shomart Tokayev has called on his security forces "to fire fatal shots without warning" and insulted his demonstrating citizens as "bandits and terrorists", Russia and China have backed the autocrat.
From a left-wing perspective, it only seems logical to have their backs on Russia and China.
Suddenly a state politician: Katja Kipping was too tired to fight, now she dares to start over
The latest news
Germany imposes a ban on exports of armaments to Kazakhstan:
In the face of violent protests, Kazakhstan's president has issued an order to shoot.
For the time being, Germany does not want to deliver any more armaments.
The situation in the country remains confusing.
The seven-day incidence continues to rise to 335.9:
55,889 new infections were reported to the Robert Koch Institute within 24 hours.
268 people died in connection with the coronavirus.
Djoković was allegedly infected with Corona in December:
Australia's tennis association considers itself innocent in the dispute over Novak Djoković's entry.
His lawyers announced at a court hearing that he was infected with the corona virus in December.
The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today
Late number of cases recorded by health authorities: Why our wastewater is the better pandemic early warning system
Swastika on the door, dead birds in the mailbox. Hatred becomes extremely dangerous when it leaves the network
Suddenly a state politician: Katja Kipping was too tired to fight, now she dares to start over
I wish you a good start to the day.
Your Melanie Amann
