News of the day: new corona infections, Boris Johnson, Antony Blinken, Ukraine, wealth tax

1.

In Germany, the Robert Koch Institute is reporting a record number of people infected with corona today, but in Great Britain the omicron wave is probably ebbing away, and even the obligation to wear masks is said to be dropped

Can you face a pandemic with cheek?

British

used a debate in the British Parliament today

to declare the

As of Thursday next week, people in

will no longer have to wear masks, according to Johnson.

The mask requirement in schools will be canceled tomorrow.

From the end of next week, anyone who wants can go back to the office.

The presentation of vaccination certificates is also no longer necessary.

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Prime Minister Boris Johnson

Photo: - / AFP

Johnson's statement is somewhat astounding on a day when

new

were reported in

and

. In Germany, the number of reported infections exceeded 100,000 in one day for the first time. The Robert Koch Institute put the number of new infections in the past 24 hours at 112,323. Federal Health Minister

expects the

in our country to peak in a few weeks. "I think we will reach the peak of the wave in mid-February, then the number of cases could drop," says Lauterbach.

What do you think of this assessment? "Omicron has been dominant in Germany since the beginning of January and is driving up the number of infections massively because it can also infect vaccinated people," says my colleague Julia Merlot from the SPIEGEL science department. The fact that Lauterbach expects the peak of the wave in February is consistent with model calculations, for example by Max Planck researcher Viola Priesemann and Kai Nagel from the TU Berlin. "This takes into account people's reactions to increasing numbers of infections and possible developments in the vaccination and recovery rate."

Otherwise, there was only limited encouraging corona news today. According to a British study, people with mild corona can also suffer from memory loss for months. Infection numbers with the omicron variant of the virus that have never been reached before have been reported from many European countries. And Corona has even arrived in the South Seas state of Kiribati. Its government had managed to keep Corona almost completely away from its islands - now the first plane that was allowed to land brought 36 infected people to the archipelago, with a machine coming from Fiji. The infected were taken to a quarantine center.

After all, falling infection numbers are reported in Great Britain, where the omicron variant prevailed particularly early.

So is Boris Johnson just a tad too early to say that the end of the pandemic is near?

Audacity, as the writer Kurt Tucholsky diagnosed in one of his books, “can almost always be explained by insecurity”.

• Read more here: "Mild" can still mean months of memory loss

• Corona News: The most important developments at a glance

2.

In order to prevent war, US Secretary of State Blinken pledged support for Ukraine today, NATO boss Stoltenberg told SPIEGEL that he would like to "continue to discuss" with Russia

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Volodymyr Zelenskyj (left) and Antony Blinken in Kiev

Photo: Alex Brandon/AP

Not surprisingly,

, speaking from Kiev today, advised Russia to take a "peaceful path."

His government is determined to support

has given him that

on the way.

He hopes, said Blinken, that his planned meeting with

on Friday in Geneva will bring progress.

Blinken is expected in Berlin tonight.

His talks today in Kiev with

and

he called "a diplomatic effort to de-escalate tensions" on Twitter.

My colleague Britta Sandberg and my colleague Maximilian Popp interviewed

for SPIEGEL in Berlin.

He considers the danger of an armed conflict in Europe to be "real".

We are currently witnessing "how Russia is massively increasing troops in and around Ukraine," according to Stoltenberg.

“We're seeing threats.

The situation is worrying, even threatening.«

At least the NATO boss also reports that he thinks it is wrong to speak of a failure of the negotiations with Russia.

"We have identified issues that we can discuss further, such as arms control."

The two SPIEGEL people also asked Stoltenberg whether NATO had ruled out expanding eastwards towards Russia in the 1990s.

"Such a promise was never made, there was never such a backroom deal," claims Stoltenberg.

'That's just plain wrong.

How should that work?

By what right could we deny a country like Latvia, Lithuania or even Poland the right to take its fate into its own hands?” NATO is a defensive alliance.

"But we must remain open and accept the decisions of independent democracies."

• Read more here: Blinken threatens Russia with “massive consequences”

• Interview with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg: "Russia is the aggressor"

3.

In order to make the world a little fairer, prominent rich people have now demanded higher taxes for their kind - but their chances of success are rather slim

More than a hundred

today called for a global

for the world's richest.

The appeal, signed by American film producer and heiress

, among others , reads: "Tax us, the rich, now." The world has experienced great suffering in the past two years, while the richest have become even richer and only very few of them would have paid taxes adequately.

According to estimates, a good 2.5 trillion dollars could be collected annually with a tax on the wealthy – in order to curb inequality and the consequences of corona, for example.

Enlarge image

Street scene in St Moritz

Photo:

Oli Scarff/Getty Images

Groups with strange-looking names like the Patriotic Millionaires and the Millionaires for Humanity together with initiatives like Tax Me Now wrote the appeal as an open letter to the participants of the

. Among other things, it reads: Every country in the world must demand “that the rich pay their fair share”. Among the signatories is Marlene Engelhorn, a descendant of BASF founder Friedrich Engelhorn and potential heir to Boehringer millions.

How good are the chances for stronger and global taxation of the rich? "Three years ago, the Dutch historian Rutger Bregman stirred up the World Economic Forum by demanding higher taxes for the rich," says my colleague David Böcking from SPIEGEL's business department. "Since then, the topic has become even more urgent due to the

, as the millionaires' appeal now shows." Among the signatories, however, are many who have been campaigning for higher taxes for a long time; they hardly speak for the majority of the rich.

How great the resistance is was only recently shown again in Germany, says David.

»SPD and Greens wanted a return of wealth tax and moderate increases in top tax rates.

Because the FDP was against it, nothing of the sort was agreed in the end - not even a moderate reform of the ramshackle inheritance tax.« But still: »The global minimum tax that has now been passed makes it more difficult for entrepreneurs to distribute their profits around the world in a tax-saving way.«

• Read more here: Millionaires call for a global wealth tax to combat the pandemic

(Would you like to receive the "Situation in the evening" conveniently by e-mail in your inbox? Here you can order the daily briefing as a newsletter.)

What else is important today

• Massive job cuts planned in Stuttgart:

  Around 20 percent of the editorial jobs are to be eliminated at the "Stuttgarter Zeitung" and "Stuttgarter Nachrichten".

  And editor-in-chief Reisinger announced further cuts.

• Conservationists accidentally discover two rare seahorses:

  Short-snouted seahorses have actually been considered to have largely disappeared for almost a hundred years.

  Two specimens have now been found on Wangerooge.

• A lack of housing is causing the number of commuters to continue to rise:

  more than 3.5 million Germans do not live in the federal state in which they work.

  The number of commuters increased noticeably in 2021, despite Corona and working from home.

• With a view to Russia, Macron is calling for a “new security order” in Europe:

  the West is looking for a united response to the Ukraine crisis.

  In a speech in Strasbourg, French President Macron recalled European values ​​- and spoke of "strategic rearmament".

My favorite story today: 

Auction of the Century in Rome

Enlarge image

Caravaggio ceiling painting »Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto«

Photo: RICCARDO ANTIMIANI/EPA

Because the Texas-born Princess

is at odds with her stepsons, a Roman

was to be auctioned yesterday at an estimated value of 470 million euros.

There was talk of an auction of the century, media from all over the world reported, including SPIEGEL, of course.

But nobody struck.

My colleague Frank Hornig writes happily and happily about potential future buyers like the Sultan of Brunei and the next auction date in April.

The required minimum bid is then 20 percent lower, reports Frank.

"Even in the 21st century, apparently nobody wants to simply throw assets into the Tiber without a net."

• Read the full story here: Caravaggio First, Second... and Flop

What we recommend at SPIEGEL+ today

• Why the corona numbers are becoming increasingly inaccurate:

  Omikron is causing the number of infections to explode, health authorities are overloaded.

  Because the PCR tests are now also becoming scarce, the seven-day incidence only reflects the actual pandemic situation to a limited extent.

• What Russia could use to attack Ukraine:

  Russia is assembling soldiers and military equipment near the border with Ukraine.

  These include weapons with great destructive potential.

  But Ukraine's biggest problem in the event of an attack is likely to date back to Soviet times.

• How long we can do without Russia's gas:

  This winter, natural gas in Europe is scarcer than it has been for a long time.

  If Moscow halted all supplies because of the Ukraine crisis, could liquefied natural gas from the US and Africa replace Russian pipelines?

• “They want us no more”:

  Peter Dietze works double shifts – and yet the professional fisherman has been on the edge of existence for years.

  A conversation about not enough fish, too many seals and the bleak future of his profession.

• The bureaucrat who helped plan the extermination of the Jews – and suddenly forgot everything:

  educated, speaking five languages, Rockefeller scholarship holder: The careerist Georg Leibbrandt helped organize the mass murder of Jews.

  Nevertheless, he was later able to stylize himself as a marginal figure.

Which is less important today

• Lockdown couple in love.

  Zhao Xiaoqing, 28,

  an online apple trader by trade, has met her dating partner

  Zhao Fei

  engaged. The two young people from the Chinese city of Xianyang were portrayed by their country's state media because they had to spend much more time together than originally planned due to a lockdown. She and her partner Zhao Fei were only seeing each other for the second time when their city was suddenly locked down due to a virus outbreak in mid-December, the newly engaged couple said. "I never intended to stay overnight." Then she apparently had to stay with her permanent date and his family for several weeks. "We get along very well," Zhao Xiaoqing announced. Your partner looks much better in reality than in his dating photo. "And our parents are both happy."

Typo of the day

, now corrected: "The 35-year-old Mallorcan Nadal proved his strong form on Wednesday in a 6: 2, 6: 3, 6: 4 win against Yannick Hanfmann from Karlsruhe."

Cartoon of the Day:

Lying Press

And tonight?

Enlarge image

Photo: Sebastian Maas / DER SPIEGEL

Could you cook up something nice and minimalist against the gray of winter and the cold of January.

My colleague Sebastian Maas recommends a

Even the photo that adorns his recipe for Egg Crust Rice Casserole looks great.

And Sebastian's instructions also put you in a good mood.

It is one of those dishes "that remind you of a time when you stretched out in the back seat of a car and were carried into the house asleep after the drive," writes the colleague - and promises that when you bake rice pleasure »anticipation of spring«.

A lovely evening.

Yours sincerely,

Here you can order the »Situation in the Evening« by e-mail.