The corona numbers are going through the roof.
The federal states are dissatisfied with the federal crisis management, especially with the Infection Protection Act.
It is unclear whether there will be a majority in the Bundestag for general vaccination, although the Federal Minister of Health wants it.
But as if none of this were happening, Karl Lauterbach is in a brilliant position, still playing at the top of the popularity polls, in the Chancellor's league.
Mona Jaeger
Deputy Editor-in-Chief for News and Politics Online.
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Eckhart Lohse
Head of the parliamentary editorial office in Berlin.
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Lauterbach continues to walk the world with impressive self-confidence.
Even if he claims, as recently on Twitter, that Germany has the highest incidence in Europe, which would not be good news for the country's top pandemic manager and was wrong.
A number of countries had higher incidences at the time, such as Iceland, Austria and the Netherlands.
Karl Lauterbach has always presented himself as a man of figures, studies and facts.
He always wanted to be more a scientist than a politician.
But aspiration and reality sometimes fall apart.
Lauterbach was often right.
But he also changed his mind and contradicted himself. It wasn't that noticeable because Lauterbach simply says a lot, and whoever says a lot is often right.
When the effectiveness of curfews was discussed several months ago, the member of parliament Lauterbach justified their necessity with an Oxford study.
They show that curfews have an effect “of about 15 percent reduction in the rate of reproduction”.
On the other hand, one of the authors of the study said that such statements were “misinterpretations”, and that the data could not be transferred to Germany.
Lauterbach first called the newly discovered Omikron variant "very dangerous" and called for border closures.
Then: "Omicron outshines everything we have experienced so far in the pandemic." Which is absolutely true.
In the meantime, however, Lauterbach has denied the accusation that he only ever draws horror scenarios.
He read up on Omicron very early on and described the variant as comparatively harmless.
Lauterbach has an "infallibility ego"
The man of studies can also deal with these creatively and hands-free.
Of course, Lauterbach always has a scientific paper to hand, says a companion.
But if you take a closer look, you'll be amazed at how Lauterbach came to his conclusions.
In the end he always admits himself right.
He has an "infallibility ego," says another companion.
Lauterbach is constantly on the air.
Though he says he tweets "less than a tenth of what I tweeted before I took office," he's still very active on the platform, with his followers nearing the million mark.
With Chancellor Scholz, it's not even 400,000. "It's not about fun or enjoyment," said Lauterbach.
"I want to reach the people." And what does he then tell them, the people?
In mid-February, he referred to a study from Israel and said the data "rather" speak against a fourth vaccination for everyone.
A month later, Lauterbach called on the elderly to get boosters again, i.e. to take the fourth vaccination.
Clear communication looks different.