Omicron, or: As you like it
The Corona story is also a story of scarcity.
Toilet paper, masks, tests, vaccines, hospital beds - everything was scarce before.
At the moment it is the PCR tests again in Germany (before it will be the beds again in about two weeks).
Time for a prime ministerial conference!
Today the heads of government of the federal states are discussing with Chancellor Olaf Scholz how to proceed in the fight against Omikron.
Spoilers: basically the same as before.
This can be inferred from the draft of the so-called draft resolution available to us.
However, the course is changed during testing.
In order to counteract the PCR test bottlenecks, priority should be given in the future if the worst comes to the worst.
The PCRs, which are also often praised as the “gold standard”, are therefore primarily planned for vulnerable groups and employees in hospitals and comparable facilities.
The rest of us do quick tests when there is a shortage.
Quote of the draft: "When bottlenecks occur, it is ... essential to prioritize."
This is how the scarcity cycle works in Corona times:
The supply has not already been increased with foresight, but the shortage is being combated with prioritization.
Do you remember the vaccine distribution?
I agree.
Well, there was no prioritization when it came to toilet paper.
It was the law of the strongest.
Whereby: The prioritization of PCR tests will certainly not lead to commercial providers closing their shops.
Those who can afford it will then buy their security, low earners and their (perhaps also vulnerable?) environment will have to deal with the uncertainty of the quick test.
Not every new regulation leads to a regulated everyday life.
And in some areas there may soon not even be a regulation, such as contact tracing.
Because the health authorities also have “limited capacities” (when didn’t they actually have that in the past two years?), the follow-up should be prioritized.
In the future, people should "inform their contact persons on their own responsibility," says the draft, as of Sunday evening.
Unfortunately, this probably doesn't sound all that new to many of you, I suppose.
Draft for Corona summit: PCR tests only according to priority
Merz is trump
Friedrich Merz joined a great tradition at the weekend.
Like Helmut Kohl and other chairmen before him, he shed a tear on the open stage.
In the case of Merz, however, it wasn't the
coat of German history
that first touched and then touched him, but his formidable election result: with almost 95 percent, the Christian Unionists chose him as their new boss on Saturday.
95 percent, has that ever existed?
Let me think for a moment.
yes it has
The inevitable cabbage came in at 98.5 percent in 1990.
But hey, that was the unity year, doesn't count.
Just bad luck for Merz that there was another one that got more: in 2012 this predecessor achieved 97.9 percent.
You know who that was.
If the Ninety-Five Percent Merz now follows the rules of accumulation of power, then Union faction leader Ralph Brinkhaus will lose his office in the spring.
Because everything actually indicates that Merz must and will unite party and parliamentary group leadership in order to become a powerful opposition leader.
And there are good examples of that.
20 years ago, the then CDU chairwoman snatched the office of the incumbent leader of the parliamentary group after an election defeat.
The man's name was Friedrich Merz, and the woman, well, you know.
Friedrich Merz as the new CDU boss: The call for help
Putin's poker
The "nationalist idol" has made a "robbery deal," a "bold, shameless transaction."
That's not how Golo Mann once wrote about Vladimir Putin (because he couldn't have known him yet).
But about Frederick the Great, who made his Prussia great at the expense of Poland: territorial integrity disregarded, illegally annexed.
Today is Friedrich's 310th birthday and Europe seems strangely transported back to a time of disorder, in which the stronger threatens to simply take what they want.
Will Putin actually invade Ukraine?
More than 100,000 Russian soldiers are in the north, east and south of Ukraine.
The EU foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels today to seek a way out of the crisis with Russia.
Although I have the impression that the Germans in particular have not exactly contributed to relaxation in the past few days.
First there were the quirky statements by the now resigned Navy chief Kay-Achim Schönbach ("What Putin really wants is respect"), then the recurring signals that the threat of sanctions is not taken too seriously in this country: threats and "ever tougher sanctions "Couldn't be the solution alone," said CSU boss Markus Söder of the "FAZ".
And new sanctions would “also often harm us just as much”.
Incidentally, a war in Europe would also harm us.
At this point, I would like to refer you again to our interview with long-time
presidential adviser Fiona Hill
from the US think tank Brookings. Fiona Hill is one of the best experts on Putin in the West. A few years ago I was able to visit her in her Washington office, which was then decorated with a Soviet propaganda poster; and even then she warned that too often we fail to clearly analyze Putin's motives.
Now she says, "I think Putin's core concern is pushing the US out of Europe... He's trying to push the US out of Europe, just as the Soviet Union was pushed out of Eastern Europe almost 30 years ago." So it's not just about Ukraine:
"This is an attack on the system of international relations... The essence is that one country tells the other that it has no right to exist."
Maybe tougher sanctions aren't such a stupid idea after all.
Interview with Fiona Hill: "We shouldn't lie to each other and think Putin is just bluffing"
Winner of the day...
... is the tails.
Starting today, the Ludwig Erhard Center in Fürth is showing items from the private estate of the second chancellor and former CDU leader (only 75.4 percent!), including the tails in which he was sworn in before the Bundestag in 1963.
Bavaria's Prime Minister Söder will also come.
The tailcoat can be happy to be in the limelight again.
Incidentally, the current chancellor did not wear tails and the divine formula when he was sworn in in December.
I consider both to be progress, but such things are certainly nice to look at in a museum.
The latest news from the night
Washington orders families of US diplomats to leave Kyiv:
Because of the threat from Russia, the US State Department is asking families of diplomats to leave the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.
The embassy staff in Ukraine is also to be reduced
Lauterbach sees no alternative to a shortened convalescent
status: that happened too quickly for many: those who already had Corona no longer lose their status as convalescents after six, but three months.
The Minister of Health has now explained why there is no transition period
French fashion designer Thierry Mugler is dead:
Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Cardi B and Kim Kardashian have already worn his creations.
Designer Thierry Mugler has died at the age of 73.
According to his spokesman, his death was unexpected
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I wish you a good start into the day.
Yours Sebastian Fischer
