One can despair of Karl Lauterbach.
No other top politician is considered by the citizens to be as competent in health issues as the professor from Cologne.
After the start of the corona pandemic, no one else had people hanging on their every word like the captain of the team, Caution.
And when the Social Democrat was presented as Federal Minister of Health at the end of the coalition negotiations, many felt confirmed in their opinion that Lauterbach was the ideal person for this thankless department.
But after almost five months, the enthusiasm is over.
It has given way to disappointment, irritation and sometimes even anger, and for some to all of these at the same time.
Of course, the man was idealized for a long time.
In the government district there are some well-informed health politicians with a degree in medicine.
Not only Lauterbach can read scientific studies, although he is the only one who talks about them all the time.
Those who mean well with him will trivialize the loss of popularity as the natural end of a hype.
If only that were it.
The traffic light government's corona management is a disaster.
What were those times when the biggest problem was the question of how well the coordination between the Ministry of Health and the Robert Koch Institute was.
The tug of war about the shortening of the convalescent status has been suppressed, overlaid by far worse things.
There are political contradictions between the three governing parties.
When the Bundestag changed the Infection Protection Act with the majority of the traffic light coalition, far-reaching relaxations came into force.
The FDP had long grumbled that the restrictions would have to be good at some point – and the SPD and Greens allowed the smallest coalition partner to do so in times of astronomically high infection rates.
A crazy, crazy manoeuvre.
Now Lauterbach can't do anything about the aberrations of the Free Democrats.
But no one forced the minister to support the "difficult compromise".
Lauterbach made every effort to represent the decision.
It just didn't work.
The decision counteracted everything the man had stood for for two years.
Of course, coalitions don't work without compromises.
But the end of the most important corona measures after two years of crisis was not a legislative side note.
It was about nothing less than the question of how the government intends to continue to deal with the biggest health crisis in recent decades.
What is important for the minister responsible if not that?
Shortly thereafter, the traffic light failed in the attempt to introduce a general obligation to vaccinate.
Lauterbach wanted them, Scholz wanted them, experts wanted them, the FDP didn't want them.
In the end, the Bundestag decided nothing at all.
The list of the day's losers fills pages, with the health minister at the top.
Who can, who wants to take all this seriously?
In addition to the substantive breaks, there is a ludicrous confusion in the attempt to explain all this to the citizens.
Lauterbach first wrested the federal states' approval to relax the rules for corona isolation, he wanted to move away from the official order and make it voluntary.
A day later he cashed in on the plan shortly before midnight on a television talk show.
Going it alone, without coordinating with the countries responsible for implementing the rules.
Later that night, the minister posted a statement online.
On Thursday evening, Lauterbach agreed with the federal states to shorten the isolation period for those who tested positive to five days.
The next morning he warned on television to be careful: Infected people could still be contagious.
Who wants, who can still take all this seriously?
The virus continues to threaten millions of people.
In their health, their life, their existence.
Hardly anyone knows that better than Lauterbach.
The manoeuvring, and the lack of courage on the part of those responsible to make unpopular decisions, would be even more noticeable were it not for the war in Eastern Europe.
There is no question that Ukraine is a priority right now.
But Corona has not disappeared.
The government needs credibility at the latest when the country enters a new phase of the pandemic in autumn.
Does she know where she wants to get it from?
When Lauterbach became Minister, some had doubts.
According to the SPD, he was uncontrollable and unsuitable for the job because a good minister had to be more than a master of his trade.
Lauterbach was a brave decision by Chancellor Scholz.
The Rhinelander could have become a model for a new type of politician.
One who is successful without party tactics and cliques.
Someone who succeeds in things because he first and foremost understands something about the matter.
So far he's screwed her up quite a bit.