Markus Lanz on ZDF: no herd immunity at the expense of the children

Markus Lanz on ZDF is discussing the federal election and vaccination campaign. Hubertus Heil makes the mediator.

Hamburg – In barely seven weeks a new Federal Chancellor will be elected (for the sake of form we write: possibly also a Federal Chancellor), the future of the country is at stake, a future that especially the younger Germans fear.

Not only, but also because of Corona, the almost never-ending pandemic. The virologist Prof. Ulrike Protzer commented on the debate about child vaccinations and emphasized that the corona vaccines have been approved for children from 12 years on. Even if the risk of getting sick is low, younger people can become vaccine drivers because they have a lot more social contacts. Young adults in particular, such as students, can often meet dozens, sometimes even a hundred, people in a lecture hall during a university lecture.

Markus Lanz (ZDF): From the corona pandemic to normality – not at the children’s expense

Moritz Piepel, a 22-year-old student and member of the Youth Council of the Generations Foundation, also emphasized the importance of vaccination for younger people who finally want to have a certain normality again, who also want to celebrate, but above all want to go back to school and university. He and many of his contemporaries are vaccinated and happy about it. The question of whether the vaccination is worthwhile does not arise for him. There is always a small risk, but the focus is on protecting the much more vulnerable parents or grandparents.

Hubertus Heil (SPD), Federal Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, surprisingly tried to not over-hang the advice of the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) on Markus Lanz on ZDF, not to approve vaccinations (yet) for over 12-year-olds. So shouldn’t the Stiko, which is valued by all politicians, be taken too seriously? A contradiction that Lanz shot at and emphasized again and again that the corona risk for children is practically non-existent and that the understandable desire for herd immunity should not be enforced at the children’s expense.

The guests at “Markus Lanz” on ZDF on Tuesday, August 3rd

Hubertus Heil on “Markus Lanz” on ZDF: Is the pension still safe?

Pension policy, however, is an even more complex topic for the 2021 federal election. Norbert Blüm once said: “The pension is safe”, but that was a long time ago. Moritz Piepel is concerned about intergenerational equity, because the state now spends a good 25 percent of its budget on financing pensions, a figure that can only increase in view of the demographic development. Radical rethinking would be necessary, but Piepel sees black.

Hubertus Heil tried to mediate in the talk with “Markus Lanz” and pointed out that it is true that society is getting older and older, but that this process will soon change: The low-birth cohorts of the 60s and 70s are getting older and slow thereby a little bit of pressure from the boiler, especially since the birth rate went up again in the following decades. But positive developments on the labor market would also ease the situation.

Kristina Dunz, capital city editor from RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland, once again criticized the inertia of politics, which prefers to postpone problems, postpone them to the next legislative period and prefer to suppress necessary tough decisions. Does politics look too closely at the interests of the over 60s, who now make up a large majority of voters? Hubertus Heil, of course, vehemently denied this thesis, which by no means convinced his opponents. Does it take massive immigration to keep the pension system alive? Will people soon have to work until they are 70? Or is it enough to turn small adjusting screws to secure the pension? There were no clear answers to these difficult questions that evening, the topic of pensions is likely to remain topical for longer than Long-Covid. (Michael Meyns)