Due to the corona pandemic, the session carnival should largely be canceled in the current 2021/2022 session. The black and yellow state government of Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) and the heads of the organized carnival agreed on Tuesday. Wüst said the current infection situation and the foreseeable soon dominant virus variant Omikron are too great factors of uncertainty. The carnival as a mass event in narrow indoor spaces is not responsible. He was grateful that the carnival officials had therefore agreed to forego such events. The high risk already required fundamental decisions.
However, decisions about parades and the street carnival on the "great days" between Carnival and Rose Monday will not be made until the new year. "We have to watch the infection process," said Cologne Carnival President Christoph Kuckelkorn after the conversation in the State Chancellery. Frank Prömpeler, who is not only President of the Aachen Carnival Festival Committee, but also Vice President of the Federation of German Carnival, expressed the hope that there might still be carnival parades after all. This signal is "also good for the people". However, if the infection situation does not allow it, then a decision will be made accordingly.
The Düsseldorf Carneval Committee, which did not take part in the exchange with Prime Minister Wüst on Tuesday, now wants to discuss how to proceed on Wednesday.
But even the committee does not see much leeway on the subject.
To the displeasure not only of the Cologne junkies, the Düsseldorf carnivalists had unceremoniously postponed their Rose Monday procession to the month of May some time ago.
Christoph Kuckelkorn had already made it clear that this is out of the question for Cologne.