Anne Will (ARD): In the Corona Talk, Karl Lauterbach is fighting on all fronts

Anne Will focuses on the new government. Topic: “New government, old crises – can the promised departure succeed?”

Berlin – “Have you done everything to encourage people to vaccinate?”, Not just once, but several times the editor-in-chief of the world, Dagmar Rosenfeld, and Karl Lauterbach, Federal Minister of Health, asked this question. The Anne Will broadcast on December 12, 2021 on ARD was supposed to be about assessing the first steps of the newly formed traffic light coalition.

The revision of the Infection Protection Act and the advances towards a general vaccination requirement were considered to be the pivotal point. Rosenfeld’s insistent manner was apparently aimed at proving a first, massive mistake in the new government, because the new coalition partners have categorically rejected an obligation to vaccinate and are now discussing it.

Karl Lauterbach at Anne Will (ARD): At least trying to give concrete answers

“The traffic light has got off to a successful start in terms of staging,” said Rosenfeld at Anne Will in Das Erste. “But her deeds so far are not as brilliant as the glossy pictures she had produced,” she said. Unfortunately, Rosenfeld’s statements remained vague and striking throughout the discussion. In the end, she actually contradicted herself, because she demanded that politicians communicate and position themselves as specifically as possible. She accused Olaf Scholz, whom she referred to by his nickname “Scholzomat”, for example: “He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t answer the questions you ask him. “

But the one who actually tried to give specific answers to questions that were more rhetorical and malicious was Karl Lauterbach. “Olaf Scholz did not derive my suitability as Federal Minister of Health from the talk shows,” he corrected right at the beginning, when Wolfgang Merkel, political scientist and democracy researcher, suggested exactly this, half ironically, half seriously. Lauterbach (SPD) fought on all fronts on Anne Will’s talk show (ARD). His attempt on the show to convince of the importance of vaccination was repeatedly thwarted by discussions aimed at the power structures of the traffic light coalition.

Anne Will (ARD): Norbert Röttgen attacks Katrin Göring-Eckardt

In particular, Norbert Röttgen, member of the presidium and candidate for the party chairmanship of the CDU, urged that the new government be blamed for gross errors in communication about the pandemic. He primarily targeted Katrin Göring-Eckardt from Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen, Vice President of the Bundestag, whom he accused of having falsely declared the end of the pandemic together with colleagues at the end of October. “Instead of correcting this in time, the face was saved”, criticized Röttgen on the ARD. Unfortunately, Göring-Eckardt didn’t really have much to oppose this, except that we are now dealing with a government that is making “important decisions together”.

This also applies to the pandemic. “A compulsory vaccination must be checked carefully, that doesn’t happen overnight,” said Göring-Eckardt. You have to take your time. “But there is no time,” both Röttgen and Anne Will put in on their broadcast on ARD. In that regard, the discussion got slightly comical, if not surreal. Because on one side was Göring-Eckardt, who pointed out the situation of children in the pandemic with a rather embarrassing, almost desperate attempt to gain sympathy and hoped to land on TikTok with the following saying: “Thank you kids, you did that very sensibly. More sensible than many others. ”She also wanted to point out that vaccinating children is very important for her so that those who, as she emphasized, have a right to it, can lead a normal life again.

Anne Will (ARD): Current vaccine offers less protection at Omikron

But it did not get to the heart of the matter. It was Lauterbach who, on the other hand, never tired of explaining how the current corona situation is made up and making the actual statement about the need for a vaccination. “The fact that 90% of the people are vaccinated is not enough to fight the pandemic because the vaccine is not 100% effective,” he said at Anne Will in the first. “With a new variant like Omikron, the current vaccine only offers 35% protection.” This is why the booster vaccinations are so important, he explained. “With the new Vaccination Protection Act and the booster vaccinations, we want to break the delta wave and at the same time prevent the Omikron cases.”

Until then, and Karl Lauterbach is assuming April of next year, there will be new vaccines that can prevent new waves and specifically target the Omikron variant. So whether you need to be vaccinated for the fourth time next spring, asked Anne Will. Lauterbach couldn’t answer that. Nobody knows that at the moment.

It was not entirely clear in which direction the program of Anne Will (ARD) wanted to go exactly. The initial question, which was supposed to assess the first measures and appearances of the traffic light coalition, was only applied superficially. It was reflected in a rather watery back-and-forth between those present, which Lauterbach aptly summed up with the sentence “We try to push each other the buck”. Obviously, it was a personal concern of his to talk about necessary steps in the pandemic, for which the framework was not intended. “A strong signal”, as Röttgen would like from the traffic light coalition, has definitely failed to materialize. (Teresa Vena)