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Karl Lauterbach: "With this we end avoidable suffering"
Photo: Michael Kappeler / dpa
According to Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD), this third year of the pandemic will decide whether the coronavirus will develop into an endemic virus with low mortality, "or whether we will miss this opportunity."
This is how Lauterbach expressed himself in a Bundestag debate on the health policy of the traffic light coalition.
"The risk of the corona virus is still not being assessed correctly by everyone," said Lauterbach.
He called on citizens to vaccinate again and emphasized once again how important the booster vaccination was. "I appeal to your common sense, I appeal to your solidarity," said Lauterbach. “Many of us go to great lengths to protect them. Please take the opportunity at least for the first vaccination. "Those who refuse the possibility of vaccination," even violate the moral imperative of the categorical imperative in the sense of Immanuel Kant. " Because such a refusal could "never be the maxim of action for all of us".
The pandemic can only be ended in the long term if the majority of the population is vaccinated in such a way that severe courses are no longer expected, even with new variants of the corona virus.
There are hardly any specialists who assume that Omikron will be the last variant.
There will be other variants.
The fastest way out of the pandemic is therefore to introduce a general compulsory vaccination.
It is possible that the "Omikron wall" - a sudden increase in the number of infections - will become a "steep hill" in Germany, said Lauterbach.
That would save many lives.
"With this we end avoidable suffering," said Lauterbach.
Tino Sorge, health policy spokesman for the Union parliamentary group, accused Lauterbach of "booming silence" on important questions, such as which primary goal should be achieved with mandatory vaccination or how the targeted further 30 million vaccinations should be achieved by the end of January. In addition, Sorge criticized that Lauterbach, contrary to what was initially announced, had not submitted an application for mandatory vaccination.
The background to this is that the Bundestag is supposed to vote on the obligation to vaccinate beyond parliamentary group discipline, the MPs are only committed to their conscience. The so-called group motions should be worked out across factions, a separate draft of the traffic light coalition is not planned - probably also because there are major reservations in the FDP about mandatory vaccinations. As things stand at the moment, the CDU and CSU in the Bundestag do not want to submit their own application to introduce compulsory vaccinations.
Lauterbach had previously justified his reluctance to be neutral as Minister of Health.
He told SPIEGEL that he would join a proposal drawn up by the Bundestag, but "not lead the way".
"I will support proposals that convince me just as much as other proposals." This "neutrality" is important "in order to be able to offer the help of the Federal Ministry of Health to all members of parliament", according to Lauterbach.
"We are booster European world champions"
The health policy spokeswoman for the FDP parliamentary group, Christine Aschenberg-Dugnus, praised the health minister's vaccination campaign in the debate.
"We are booster European world champions," explained Aschenberg-Dugnus.
She stressed that her government wanted to digitize the health system.
Debureaucratisation is also important.
Caregivers and family caregivers, Aschenberg-Dugnus said, deserved more recognition.
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