It was high time.
Politicians and scientists are finally questioning the madness of the free German corona tests, including the Minister of Justice.
One thing is clear: if everyone has had an opportunity to vaccinate, they will have to pay for the smear themselves again.
In September at the latest, the boundless boom of an industry that has been flourishing at the expense of taxpayers since spring would be over.
In the spring, the government turned their vaccination problems into a test vice. Because she had failed to urge an effective boost to vaccine production in Brussels in good time, she had to suggest to people, at least for a transitional period, that there was an almost equivalent alternative: regular testing. Since then, everything that you can do as a vaccinated person can also be done as a freshly tested person - whether it is trips abroad without quarantine, whether it is a visit to the opera or the gym, until recently even shopping or staying in a street café.
Politics has thus promoted a fatal misunderstanding.
Because vaccination and testing are by no means equivalent.
While the double and, in the future, possibly even triple immunization, according to the current state of knowledge, almost certainly prevents the course of the disease, the rapid tests are fraught with many uncertainties - especially since nobody knows whether the nose was really drilled deeply or the gums were only briefly caressed.
In this country, it is largely up to them to decide whether those who have tested positive actually isolate themselves.
Negative result as a license
The argument that the free mass tests are now more necessary than ever to control the spread of the delta variant also takes itself ad absurdum: If a positive test result has no consequences, a negative but carte blanche is misunderstood, even without vaccination to behave: Then the virus is not contained, but spread.
But the cost factor is also significant. None of the corona vaccines cost more than 15 euros per dose, the family doctors get 20 euros for processing. More than 70 euros per patient are therefore not due, usually even less, so the matter is presumably settled for one year. The state initially paid up to 21 euros for the tests, now usually 12.50 euros - each time. In the long run, this exceeds the vaccination costs many times over, and even more so does the economic benefit: In the beginning, many people had themselves tested at state costs for 21 euros, only to be able to sit down and drink a coffee for 2.50 euros.
The state is fortunate that people did not make excessive use of this offer.
If all citizens were actually to have themselves tested on a daily basis, the costs could quickly exceed the total volume of the federal budget.
The fact that the health minister will in all probability only have to spend a single-digit billion amount on this is due solely to the many test mufflers - and the fact that daily trips to the restaurants outside in the country are not quite as common as it is in Berlin-Mitte introduce some.
Big events only for vaccinated people?
However, the end of the free mentality does not stop there. It should also be considered whether unvaccinated people should simply be denied access to places that are particularly susceptible to infection, such as major events. Exceptions could be made to groups of people for whom it can be proven that there is currently no vaccination option - be it children under the age of twelve, or the few people with very special diseases who exclude immunization.
Presenting the vaccination app including the QR code would also simplify matters and enable effective controls, where now - for example in indoor catering - the checking of overly complicated evidence is often dispensed with. Hardly anyone currently understands which Corona rules apply where (and whether there are any more). Vaccinated people are allowed to go anywhere, unvaccinated people only where they do not endanger anyone: That would finally be a rule that everyone understands - and that motivates people to vaccinate.