Corona vaccines: Merkel and Spahn set themselves the wrong goal from the start

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We watched with disbelief the flare-up of madness in the eyes of the outgoing American president.

Angela Merkel stands for the opposite of insanity, but isn't she now showing an imperturbability that threatens to become unreasonable?

In the Corona crisis, the Chancellor and her Health Minister Jens Spahn set themselves a wrong, because unattainable, goal from the start: They fight the sheer number of infections.

For this, the basic rights of all German citizens are restricted, parliamentarism has practically given up on itself, companies are sacrificed, the development opportunities of children are curtailed, singles are sentenced to house arrest and even toboggan runs are closed by the police far outside.

Germany is currently not a country in which one can “live comfortably”, as Merkel's last campaign slogan promised.

All these restrictions, which by the way now divide Germans like no other political question in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, are in vain from the start: In an open, complex, multi-networked society, you cannot make a virus disappear while someone is still going to work, takes the bus, visits the doctor, or goes shopping for groceries.

As long as society is still breathing, there will be contagion.

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The infections themselves are not the problem as long as they affect younger people without any health problems.

Corona is clearly especially dangerous for people older than 80 years and life-threatening for nursing home residents.

Once the virus has got there, it rages mercilessly.

This means: The main political task of the federal government is to protect all elderly people and especially the nursing home residents from infection as much as possible and to provide them with optimal medical care if they nevertheless fall ill.

The gross, heavy device of lockdown

So instead of putting an entire society to a standstill, crisis policy should now concentrate on three priorities at the latest: on vaccinating all the elderly and those who live with them and care for them, not just in the home;

to secure nursing homes and old people's homes without making prisons out of them;

on targeted support for the corona specialty hospitals.

However, the government fails on all three issues, which represent a demanding but manageable logistical challenge.

She uses the rough, heavy device of lockdown for everyone, instead of precisely protecting the weak with finer cutlery.

And inexplicably, in all three cases financial excuses are cited for the failure of the corona protection - although the federal government and the EU Commission are planning hundreds of billions of euros in tax money to alleviate the economic devastation of the lockdown policy (even that only succeeds with varying degrees of success).

EU secures 300 million additional cans

The EU Commission has secured 300 million additional doses of the corona vaccine from Biontech and Pfizer.

Together with the orders from the manufacturer Moderna, the EU can now vaccinate 380 million people, said Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Source: WELT / Sandra Saatmann

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For the vaccine, which Angela Merkel ordered from the EU because a European political gesture was more important to her than the quicker protection of her own population, an inexperienced EU health commissioner stuck to the senseless budget of spending a maximum of 2.7 billion euros - the EU Aid package for the member states amounts to 750 billion.

The President of the Commission Ursula von der Leyen did not seem to notice that the Cypriot Stella Kyriakides was overwhelmed with the vaccine procurement.

The effective protection of retirement and nursing homes apparently fails because there are not enough quick tests for residents, visitors and nursing staff - and that hygiene standards, such as those that are taken for granted in the serious food industry, are not complied with in the homes, be it due to time pressure , from a lack of staff or from ignorance.

In addition, there seems to be a completely irresponsible vaccination skepticism, especially among the nursing staff.

How can that be?

The federal and state governments began to deal with the protection of the facilities far too late.

They preach solidarity with the elders, but they don't practice it.

Much too late, forces from the technical relief organization and the fire brigade were called on to relieve the nurses.

Where are the Bundeswehr reservists who are always ready to help in the homes with anything that is not of a nursing nature?

You would like to do that.

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If a “national effort” has its place, it is where there is death, where disease kills!

Tests, vaccinations, additional and out of turn paid staff and additional visitor rooms - the informal government body made up of the Federal Chancellor and Prime Minister should throw imagination and tax money on these instead of constantly devising further restrictions for the rest of society.

To want to save here is crazy

Those who are sick must be treated as best as possible, and this applies not only to those with corona, but also to stroke or cancer patients, for example, whose treatment cannot be postponed until “after corona”.

Hospital financing is already a nightmare in normal times, private clinics and public houses drag in different directions, while the health insurance companies naturally want to spend as little money as possible.

But now the times are not normal.

Therefore, it would be urgent to suspend the budgets at least in the corona specialty hospitals and to switch to a system of pure reimbursement.

Then doctors and nursing staff could provide all sick people with the medicine they need without worry.

To want to save money at this point, of all places, and to warn of "deadweight effects", as one can hear from Spahn's ministry, and as the minister himself complained in the "Ärzteblatt", that is insane.

Finally, there is the matter of the health authorities and the “incidence” of 50 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, which can allegedly be “tracked” so that the epidemic comes to a standstill: in the summer and autumn almost everywhere we had values ​​below this figure of 50. The Health authorities imposed quarantine and phoned afterwards.

But that didn't help, with the winter the increase came anyway.

We are now heading towards over 200 across the board.

“Tracking the chains of infection” is a mirage when, as experts estimate, only every third person infected is actually tested.

Relaxation does not bring the "50", but the quick vaccination - and hopefully someday summer.

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