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The Chancellor really has enough problems these days.

“The thing slipped away from us,” said Angela Merkel, according to “Bild”, during internal discussions within the Union.

Everyone can guess what is meant in view of the multiple failures of the authorities on almost all Corona fronts.

But now there is another problem.

It is, ironically, a success: The corona case numbers and with them the notorious incidences are downright collapsing.

According to the latest RKI information, Bavaria, Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia are now again below 100 infections per 100,000 inhabitants in seven days.

The downward trend is unbroken - and because there are simply fewer and fewer people to get infected with, the downward trend could still be a sure-fire success for a while.

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The incidence target of 50 set by the Chancellor and Prime Minister in October could therefore come into view much more quickly than one would have dared hope even a week ago.

"Why can't we ban travel?"

This is a problem for the Chancellor because it removes a threatening backdrop.

According to “Bild”, Ms. Merkel would like to “become even stricter”, she is said to have asked internally: “Why can't we ban travel?” You have to “thin out air traffic so that you can't get anywhere”.

However, with each day on which the downward trend in the number of cases continues, even sticking to the existing measures should be harder to convey.

Appeals for renunciation and perseverance may get caught up in Great Britain or Israel.

Because there the citizen is already vaccinated - or he will be vaccinated within a reasonable period of time.

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For German and many other EU citizens, on the other hand, the hope of a quick vaccination fades with every new supply chain and logistics breakdown.

One last collective effort, one last big holding of breath, which will be enough to get to the safe vaccination bank: This narrative is not available to the Chancellor.

And so a continued strict course will only have a majority if the fear of virus mutations dominates everything.

So far it has been so, after the most recent federal-state crisis meeting, the unadorned, succinct reference to variants of the corona virus was enough for the Chancellor and the Prime Minister to enforce further tightening of the lockdown largely without being contradicted.

With reference to the “precautionary principle”, the weighing of interests was once again largely overridden.

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In the meantime, however, the incidences are also plummeting in Europe where the virus variants had spread rapidly, namely in Great Britain and Ireland.

And in Denmark, presumably the hardest hit country in continental Europe, the seven-day incidence has just fallen below the German level.

Obviously, it is not the case that B.1.1.7 and other mutations could not be cured: The spread of the variants does not inevitably lead to a loss of control with ever increasing case numbers, depending on the current situation.

That is not to say that what has not been achieved could be jeopardized again with the mutations.

But it should mean that this threatening backdrop is also crumbling.

It cannot be ruled out that the corona incidence in Great Britain and Ireland will also fall to or below the local values ​​in the foreseeable future.

Then, with reference to these two countries, trying to keep German schools, hairdressing salons and restaurants closed should be an argumentative challenge, to say the least.

And those who then want to “become stricter” and “forbid these trips” will appear to have fallen out of time.

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