"Hard but fair": Blume affords a rough athlete's foot comparison to the vaccination campaign - Green drives to the Bavarian

Created: 02/08/2022, 10:44 am

The talk show at "Hart aber fair" (ARD).

© WDR/Dirk Borm

When will the pandemic be over?

Green politician Katrin Göring-Eckardt and CSU man Markus Blume quarreled over Frank Plasberg's "Hart aber fair".

Berlin - relax or stick to measures?

In "Hart aber fair" the different camps loudly attack each other.

The biggest brawlers in the ring: Markus Blume from the CSU and Katrin Göring-Eckardt from the Greens.

Host Plasberg cleverly lures the two out of their reserve.

“Strange time in the meantime”, he introduces his program.

"In your mind" you are already "out".

A clip is intended to underline the impression: Prof. Jochen Werner, Medical Director of the Essen University Hospital, explains there: "It has to be an end to the Covid 19 alarmism, to staring at numbers!" He wants the "fear and panic mode" leave, allowing "controlled pragmatism" to prevail.

The clear words are also well received by the mother of three and former CDU family minister Kristina Schröder: “He speaks to my soul,” admits Schröder, who sees the risk in relation to Corona* for herself – boosted three times – as “so small that he doesn't frighten me".

Schröder worries about her children, not because of an infection, but because of the measures that are "still very drastic" for children.

Schröder cites her seven-year-old daughter as an example, who “has to wear the mask for seven hours every day”.

For children, this is “a huge limitation”.

"Hard but fair" - these guests discussed with:

• Katrin Göring-Eckardt

   (Greens*) - Vice President of the German Bundestag

• Markus Blume

   (CSU*) - Secretary General

• dr

  Cihan Çelik -

  senior physician and specialist in internal medicine and pneumology in the corona isolation ward at the Darmstadt Clinic

• Christina Berndt

   - science editor at the

  Süddeutsche Zeitung

• Kristina Schröder

   - Former family minister and current columnist at

  Die Welt

• Marc-Christoph Wagner

   - German department head at the Danish Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, lives with families in Copenhagen

CSU General Secretary Markus Blume is to defend the course of country chief Markus Söder*, who proclaimed the “Team Caution” for Bavaria a few weeks ago.

However, Söder surprised a few hours before the talk with the announcement that he would not implement the facility-related compulsory vaccination for nursing staff in his state from mid-March.

Blume puts it bluntly: "We were cautious when caution was called for and are now cautiously optimistic when optimism is called for."

Vaccination obligation: Between Blume and Göring-Eckardt it bangs on "Hart but fair"

But that was it with flowers.

Blume goes into direct confrontation with the federal government: "We have to make sure that we don't keep ourselves trapped in the corona loop." But the federal government would simply say: "We don't know what to do anymore, we're not doing anything for now." The Vice-President of the German Bundestag, Katrin Göring-Eckardt (Green Party), is upset with fundamental criticism: "The Olympic discipline 'I'm constantly changing my mind' would probably end up with a gold medal in Bavaria!" .

The Greens speak of CSU "populism" to mobilize voters.

The goal in Bavaria is - unlike in Berlin - clear, counters the CSU Secretary General: "More vaccinations and fewer restrictions in everyday life".

Göring-Eckardt sees it differently: What Bayern is doing right now is "according to the motto 'What do I care about my gossip from yesterday!'"

The federal government is “about to babble about the general compulsory vaccination”, counters Blume and refers to the fact that the “implementation questions have not yet been clarified” for the facility-related compulsory vaccination.

A shortcoming that is also accused of the law introducing general vaccination requirements: there is too much discrepancy between the claim and the implementation options.

Goering-Eckardt is outraged.

Prime Minister and Chancellor Olaf Scholz * would have agreed on it.

Corona in Germany - senior physician Çelik reports from the clinic: "Fixing on numbers no longer works"

Senior physician Dr.

Cihan Çelik from Darmstadt confirm.

"In the intensive care units, we now count the severe courses separately," says the lung specialist, and the Robert Koch Institute * is now doing the same, which means that the graphics such as hospitalizations and incidences "are interpreted differently".

Çelik admits that "fixing on numbers" like in "previous waves" doesn't work anymore.

However, no one knows what the hospitals will face in the next few weeks, as the virus is spreading more and more among the three million unvaccinated people over 60 who are considered vulnerable.

When Plasberg introduces the current vaccination campaign of the federal government * in the talk, the stage is free again for Blume: "Some remedies against athlete's foot" are "transported more than in this campaign!"

That fits "the emotional state and the habitus of the federal government," the CSUer continues, so one wishes "simply more passion, more esprit!" Plasberg also tries flippantly and notes that the campaign by the advertising agency - note the names “Scholz & Friends” was designed.

"Was there a confusion of names here?" Plasberg smiles.

"Hasn't the chancellor been busy and thought this up with a stupid group of friends?"

Schröder criticized: Fear was instrumentalized in the pandemic for obedience

At the end Plasberg still dares the Germany-Denmark comparison.

In the neighboring country to the north, with its almost six million inhabitants, things have been back to normal since last week.

Çelik provides the figures: "Denmark has a booster quota of over 60-year-olds of almost 96 percent, we are only just over 70 percent there." Minister Schröder notices something else: "The Danish way has significantly less than we rely on the communication of fear.” In Germany, fear was “instrumentalized” for obedience.

German-Danish Marc-Christoph

Wagner confirms: In Denmark, “people were given more pure wine”, which led to more trust.

Conclusion of the "hard but fair" talk

We will probably have to forgive ourselves a lot, Jens Spahn, then Minister of Health, said in relation to the corona pandemic policy.

Plasberg touched on the problem a little and showed what has changed on the part of politics: the new figures for statistics and prognosis, the decreasing energy with vaccinations, but also the ebbing of fear.

Maybe something still remains.

Wagner describes from Denmark: In the past you went to work with a cold, now you stay at home for four days.