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Since new and significantly more contagious virus variants were discovered in Great Britain, Brazil and South Africa, the fight against Covid-19 has become an even tougher race for life and death.
In Germany, too, there is a risk of a rapid increase in the number of infections and deaths if it is not possible to stop the spread of the mutations until large parts of the population have been vaccinated and the conditions for the virus, for example due to higher temperatures, become less favorable again.
On the other hand, the rampant Corona fatigue and the economic and social consequences of the anti-Corona measures ensure that the calls for easing do not fall silent.
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"Danger from new Corona mutants - how much 'unreasonable' do you need now?" Against this background, Anne Will asked her guests, including the head of the Federal Chancellery, Helge Braun, and the Rhineland-Palatinate Prime Minister Malu Dreyer Intensive care physician Uwe Janssens, the economist Michael Hüther and the journalist Vanessa Vu belonged.
The horror scenario of the evening
Braun, who had started to explain and defend the government's corona policy, immediately determined that the mutant had arrived in Germany and, like in other countries, would "take the lead" and "cause problems".
"That is why it is now important that we stay on course, that we lower the numbers very sharply," the CDU politician appealed.
A goal shared by the medic in the round.
You have to teach people even more clearly what is in store for them, demanded Janssens, who works as the chief physician of the clinic for internal medicine and internal intensive medicine at the St. Antonius Hospital in Eschweiler.
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“It's not the British mutation that would worry me,” said the scientist, referring to the infection process in Manaus, Brazil.
There the people were infected again, although 75 percent of the population had already been infected.
"This means that the immune system was no longer able to detect the new mutation with the antibodies it had formed," explained Janssens, who was also concerned about the long-term effectiveness of the current vaccines and before The emergence and spread of virus mutations as a result of high numbers of infections warned.
"Then we have the terrible so-called third wave," he prophesied.
The solution approach of the evening
In the search for alternative solutions to avoid this horror scenario, the currently much discussed no-covid paper came into the focus of the panel discussion.
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The proposals made by the group of experts responsible for this aim to reduce the incidence to zero thanks to, among other things, rigorous local restrictions, mobility controls, tests and quarantines, with success being rewarded with the removal of the restrictions and a renewed increase in the numbers being followed by reintroduction .
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“The strategy is simply sustainable over the long term,” said the journalist Vanessa Vu with conviction and criticized the previous approach of targeting one “relatively arbitrarily set deadline” after the other without an overarching perspective.
"The people are completely worn down," stated Vu.
The "Zeit Online" editor accused the economic researcher Hüther, who had pleaded for more sense of proportion with regard to the acceptable incidence figures, of "cynical treatment of human life".
"We are dealing with the weighing of risks," protested Hüther, referring to the expected deaths that would result indirectly from the economic upheaval.
“I think that is completely impractical,” said the director of the Institute of German Economy about the No-Covid plans: “The ideas in the paper about how the economy works have nothing to do with the real economy.
They interrupt the value chains, they interrupt the innovation chains and thus the economic activity in this country. "
The evening's dilemma
Malu Dreyer also believed that lowering the incidence values to zero in this country would not be feasible, partly because of the geographical location of Germany and the economic and cultural ties, partly because of the possible social "side effects" of the restrictions, for example for children and families.
The Rhineland-Palatinate head of government, in whose state will be elected in March, was skeptical that she could not imagine “that the population could go along with it”.
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At the same time, she referred to the great dilemma that characterized the Anne Will show, because Dreyer shared with the No-Covid advocate Vu and the other guests the serious desire to keep people happy on the one hand and as harmless as possible on the other to give them perspective so as not to lose them along the way.
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That the latter is a real danger was shown by the survey of the ARD Germany trend cited by the moderator, according to which the number of those who are less or not at all satisfied with the crisis management of the federal and state governments has increased by twelve points to 54 percent since mid-December .
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“We have to give people a positive goal,” demanded intensive care physician Janssens.
Even after an hour of intensive exchange of views, it remained unclear whether this would best be done through measures to achieve very low incidence figures, as suggested by him, through even greater collective efforts, or at least through relatively cautious interventions in everyday life.
Michael Hüther probably came closest to reality when he stated: "We are not in a situation where we can wish that away."