507 Covid-19 patients were in the intensive care units in Baden-Württemberg on Tuesday. In the summer, the country's intensive care physicians were of the opinion that 300 of these critically ill patients could take good care of them, after which it would be dramatic. On July 23, Winfried Kretschmann had not categorically ruled out the introduction of a general vaccination requirement, but pointed out that the virus was dictating the measures. "My smock is on fire," Kretschmann likes to say in situations like this. At the weekend he made the decision with the Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) to present the reasons for a general vaccination requirement in a joint guest contribution for the FAZ; it was the beginning of a broad debate.
The black-green mandatory vaccination consensus should also shake the future coalition parties of the traffic lights, after all, the two southern countries suffer from dramatically high incidences.
It is also possible that the decision by the traffic light parties, which many perceived as a mistake, to suspend the epidemic emergency situation on a national level, has now given the proponents of the obligation to vaccinate room for maneuver.
In any case, the Deputy Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Joachim Stamp, was the first time a high-ranking FDP politician was open to the general obligation to vaccinate.
So far, free democrats have always more or less strictly rejected them.
Compulsory vaccination as an "absolute last resort"
He is about a "serious discussion about how we can end the permanent continuation of the restrictions on fundamental rights due to the pandemic," said Stamp of the FAZ Lifestyle. "Compulsory vaccination is a massive encroachment on fundamental rights, which in my opinion can become necessary if we do not otherwise emerge from the spiral of other fundamental rights restrictions." When it comes to the subject of compulsory vaccination, it is "essentially a matter of definition and design" - this now has to be discussed with constitutional lawyers and health experts.The North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) made a similar statement, who also asked the Ethics Council to intervene in the debate. It is also about the credibility, said Wüst, alluding to the fact that many political actors rejected the compulsory vaccination until recently.
On the day on which the Bundeswehr decided that its soldiers should be vaccinated in view of the large number of people who refused to vaccinate, Kretschmann reiterated his position: The Green, who thinks critical of the regulations, behaved more statistically in the Corona crisis than the Social Democrats, which he therefore regularly criticized. A general compulsory vaccination is the "absolute ultima ratio", with what you do in normal times, it has nothing to do, said Kretschmann on Tuesday. “If we cannot master the situation, people will lose confidence in our ability to act.” Then there will be a division in society even more. "A general compulsory vaccination is an imposition, but the imposition that we experience in the intensive care units is much greater." The Basic Law is about freedom and responsibility.Overall, compulsory vaccination could mean a gain in freedom.