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In these months, Schleswig-Holstein's Minister of Health Heiner Garg embodies the balancing act that pulls people's nerves nationwide.
As the top pandemic guard in the north, he has to restrict precisely those civil liberties that he has always defended as FDP state chairman.
WORLD:
Mr. Garg, for the Chancellor nothing went wrong “by and large” when ordering the vaccines.
Do you share this assessment?
Heiner Garg:
No, I explicitly don't share that.
Europe is clearly lagging behind in vaccination progress.
Britain, Israel, the US - all of these countries have done better.
"Jens Spahn should have just kept going in the summer"
Source: picture alliance / dpa
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WORLD:
What did Europe do wrong?
Garg:
Jens Spahn should have just kept going in the summer.
He had already forged a vaccination alliance with colleagues from other European countries, including Italy and France.
This did not come about because the EU took over the procurement of vaccines.
If that hadn't happened, we'd probably be better off today.
WORLD:
Did Ursula von der Leyen as EU Commission President and Angela Merkel (CDU) as the then incumbent EU Council President make mistakes?
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Garg:
In any case, when
ordering
the vaccine, you did not exhaust all options that were available.
Biontech boss Ugur Sahin made this clear.
I expect that these processes will be fully cleared up at the end of the pandemic.
WORLD:
What are the current consequences of this?
Garg:
It doesn't help to find the culprit now.
We now urgently need more vaccine for the whole of the EU.
When I look at the development in Spain, for example: As here, vaccinations urgently need to be faster there too.
If that does not happen, millions of people in Spain will soon be living below the poverty line.
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WELT: In
view of this history, how optimistic are you that the federal and state governments will keep their promise that all Germans who want this can be vaccinated by September 21?
Garg:
Originally it was said that this should be done “by summer”.
Ms. Merkel has put this promise into perspective by pointing out that summer will last until September 21st.
For me, “until summer” doesn't mean “until the end of summer”.
I expect the federal government to do everything humanly possible this time to keep its promise.
And not just a week before the general election.
People's patience is already overworked.
If the federal government created the conditions, we could be largely finished with the vaccination by the summer vacation.
WORLD:
Is that really realistic given the results of the vaccination summit?
Garg:
The vaccination summit even fell below the minimum expectations that were expected of this event.
Even bystanders knew beforehand that the production of vaccines is a much more complex process than filling lemonade.
It will therefore depend on whether, and if so, when, further vaccines are approved and then delivered.
In any case, the vaccination infrastructure of the federal states would provide that.
WORLD:
Not everything is going according to plan in the countries.
In many places older people are desperate at the hotlines.
Why is that?
Garg:
If there are only a few appointments due to the very limited amount of vaccine, but the demand is so great, it can only lead to disappointment - and I am very sorry.
We have made our registration process easier for the elderly, but unfortunately we do not have more than the allocated vaccine and correspondingly more appointments.
Nevertheless, the following also applies, of course, to the federal states: If something does not go optimally, you have to be self-critical enough and initiate improvements.
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WORLD:
If the vaccination does not work properly - can you at least give people hope that the lockdown measures will be relaxed after the next Prime Minister's Conference with the Chancellor on February 10th?
Garg:
There is a clear decision at the Prime Minister's
Conference
according to which a perspective plan will be presented on this date on how the country can be brought out of lockdown step by step.
Schleswig-Holstein has made a proposal, for example, that daycare centers and schools should be gradually opened if the seven-day incidence is permanently below 100.
That would be an important message for families.
We don't need a new horror message from the Chancellery every day.
If we can all work together to push the number of infections down again, then there must be a positive result of these efforts.
WORLD:
Not only the Chancellery always pleads for a tough course.
Your Prime Minister Daniel Günther (CDU) also praises himself and his state government again and again for the particularly strict measures here.
Garg:
I would rather describe our course as stringent.
We took very consistent measures from the start.
For example, last March, at my suggestion, we announced the closure of the daycare centers - the beer gardens were still open in Bavaria.
We have kept this path of being faster and more stringent than others in fighting pandemics to this day.
WORLD:
Your consequence now goes so far that Schleswig-Holstein has just cleared the rooms of a juvenile detention center in order to accommodate notorious quarantine breakers.
Is someone already under arrest?
"If the incidence falls short, opening steps must follow"
Schleswig-Holstein's Prime Minister Daniel Günther calls for a step-by-step plan.
Source: WORLD
Garg:
No, not so far - by the way, the facility is a cooperation project between the responsible local authorities.
But I am surprised that this measure is debated so full of astonishment at all.
The rule that people who repeatedly violate quarantine measures are forcibly quarantined in case of doubt is as old as the Infection Protection Act.
WELT:
That dates back to 2001 - but Schleswig-Holstein is a pioneer nationwide with such a corona prison.
Garg:
I assume that every federal state has facilities in which it can accommodate people who permanently oppose a quarantine order.
When in doubt, these people endanger the lives of others.
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WORLD:
How difficult is it for you personally to find the balancing act between your role as strict health minister and your office as the state chairman of a party that has always fought for individual freedom?
Garg:
The right to life and physical integrity is in the same article two of the Basic Law as the right to the free development of one's personality.
Balancing these two fundamental rights against each other is a challenge for everyone involved in pandemic conditions.
I face it every day - but point out that health is the prerequisite for being able to live freedom at all.
WELT:
Could it also be that the long-term consequences of the lockdowns - economically, socially, but also health-wise - are not sufficiently taken into account in this weighing up?
Garg:
We are currently seeing that high numbers of infections in this pandemic lead to the number of deaths that we could hardly have imagined at the beginning of the pandemic.
There are regions with significant excess mortality.
In my opinion, the more than 1000 deceased, whom we have to complain about on some days as a direct consequence of Covid 19 disease, justify the high priority we are currently giving to health protection.
WORLD:
What happens if we find out in the coming months that this virus continues to mutate and that even more aggressive variants become resistant to the vaccines?
How long can a society survive such a limited life?
Garg:
My fear is actually that this Sars-Cov-2 virus will not do us a favor and will simply go away like the swine flu back then.
In this respect, I am grateful that the first vaccine manufacturers have already started to adapt their development to such a situation.
We will have to learn to live with this virus through a combination of precautions, testing, drug development and vaccine development.
And as normal a life as possible in freedom.
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WORLD:
Who annoys you more: Markus Söder (CSU), whom you have already publicly criticized for knowing better, or Karl Lauterbach (SPD), who is also quite talented in this subject?
Garg:
What annoys me most is the way in which the Prime Minister's Conferences with the Chancellor are prepared.
A week before this meeting, certain people say what could happen if you don't follow the path given by the Chancellery.
One day before the conference, this route is then put on paper, made public and then more or less resolutely adopted.
The countries can then implement that.
That may have been necessary at the beginning of the pandemic, but it won't work in the long run.
WORLD:
What do you suggest?
Garg:
The Chancellor is called upon to present her point of view, the measures she wishes to take before a Prime Minister's Conference in a government statement before Parliament.
Then the Bundestag debates these plans and makes a decision.
Then there is a prime ministerial conference - and then it is implemented.