Vaccination, Olaf Scholz, Joe Biden, joints and donuts: This time, Markus Lanz dealt with a multitude of topics.
Hamburg – Not everything is new in May, but sometimes even small changes to a less than innovative talk format like “Markus Lanz” on ZDF can contribute to a largely successful evening: instead of five guests (with one usually switched on), limited the moderator this time to four.
And lo and behold: The topics “USA” and “Corona”, which have been the same for more than a year, are not dealt with according to the scheme “the ZDF presenter gives the keyword, an expert holds monologues”, but there is a real discussion in phases the open round. While general practitioners Dr. Christian Kröner and the two journalists Anna Sauerbrey (tellingly, heads the “Opinion / Causa” section of the Tagesspiegel) and Elmar Theveßen (ZDF correspondent) have the courage to express their own opinion, Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD) is keeping a low profile.
Markus Lanz (ZDF): Family doctor complains about digitization in the German health care system
According to the program announcement, the SPD politician, who was unloaded from the ZDF broadcast on April 13 for current events, is now supposed to speak about the Corona course in his state, where far-reaching easing is planned from next Monday. But it doesn’t come to that, also because Markus Lanz first asked him about his corona vaccination at the Hanover vaccination center. Stephan Weil describes this place where the action takes place on the exhibition grounds as an “oasis of good humor”. The talk show host then elicited that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Corona emergency brake was “not really a milestone”. But what the alleged easing in Lower Saxony will look like next week and what the differences to other federal states are, the viewer does not find out.
Instead, the discussion becomes lively when it comes to the federal government’s controversial health policy: “Germany is a country of immigration. We finally have to take this into account, ”says Anna Sauerbrey. General Practitioner Dr. Christian Kröner, who vaccinates against Corona in his practice in Neu-Ulm, complains, with good reason, that digitization in the German healthcare system was still in the Stone Age. He still has to fax his patients’ vaccination records to laboratories and health authorities.
Any 14-year-old could forge the yellow vaccination card with its stickers. This is of course “punishable”, adds Anna Sauerbrey. Therefore, the “digital vaccination card does not have to be available in four months, but preferably as early as tomorrow”, says Dr. Christian Kröner. However, he does not consider the fact that many older citizens do not have a smartphone on which they can download such an app.
Unity with Markus Lanz on ZDF: Herd immunity is still a long way off
Stephan Weil admits that his 47 health offices in Lower Saxony, he knows the number exactly, have to be “upgraded” in this regard. Elmar Theveßen thinks the motto “special rights for vaccinated people plus tests” is correct. Although the USA vaccinates faster than in Germany, 32 percent of the local population already has complete vaccination protection and 44 percent received at least a first injection, the much-cited “herd immunity” in the former land of unlimited possibilities is still a long way off. “The pandemic will end with vaccination,” but everyone agrees.
Anna Sauerbrey sees – perhaps a little prematurely – that Corona is waning with Markus Lanz. Elmar Theveßen wants to restore “maximum normalcy in schools as quickly as possible”. In a conversation that the author of these lines, recently with the astrophysicist and “Terra X” moderator Prof. Dr. Harald Lesch, however, points out that due to new mutations we would have to learn to live with the virus and the longed-for “return to the old normal” is hardly possible: “And then one day we will wake up in the morning and say : ‘This is the new world! This is now the time after Corona! “It is a phase transition that we are experiencing, which is irreversible in its damage.”
Stefan Weil at Markus Lanz (ZDF): Money, donuts or joints as vaccination incentives are unimaginable in Germany
Then it gets funny: Elmar Theveßen says that people who do not want to be vaccinated in the USA are baited with money (80 dollars), donuts or even – as actually happened in some states – joints. Markus Lanz smugly: “I’m trying to interpret Mr. Weil’s face.” This dryly: “There are apparently cultural differences between the Americans and us.” He continues to believe in the common sense of our German citizens.
Markus Lanz brings open schools into the discussion as drivers of the pandemic. Stephan Weil defends changing lessons including wearing a mask and keeping your distance. This reduced the risk of infection by a factor of four. Dr. Christian Kröner know. Stephan Weil affirms this somewhat hesitantly and intimidated. Dr. Immediately afterwards Christian Kröner apologizes to him for his brisk pace. “I am not under nature protection,” says Stephan Weil humorously. Rather, he worries that children would wither away without social contact: “Tots need tots.” Christian Krömer is annoyed that the politicians suddenly care about the well-being of the children during the Corona period and not for years before.
Doctors at Markus Lanz on ZDF: With Bavaria’s overhanging vaccine, you could vaccinate Hanover!
He argues that the youngest should also be vaccinated, which is realistic thanks to approval from July with Biontech. Parents in Bavaria had already offered to install HEPA filters (HEPA = High-Efficiency Particulate Air / Arrestance) in schools at their own expense, but the politicians’ question then failed as to who would pay for the electricity. “We fail because of ourselves,” says Dr. Christian Kröner to the point. He is apolitical, but pragmatic.
The fact that there would always be some vaccine left over from the old injection syringes, which would then have to be disposed of instead of being used, would have cost numerous lives. Of 3.2 million vaccinations in Bavaria, 15 percent of the vaccine was overdue: “That would have allowed an entire city like Hanover to be vaccinated!” In Lower Saxony, the vaccine residues, including the seventh Biontech can instead of six, would have been inoculated in Bavaria official order not. Not only does Dr. Christian Kröner as scandalous. Different federal states, different (vaccination) customs …
Markus Lanz asks: How much Olaf Scholz is there in Olaf Scholz?
After this climax of the talk show, Markus Lanz devotes ten minutes to the chancellor candidate of the struggling SPD, which only manages 13 to 15 percent in surveys. “How much Olaf Scholz is in Olaf Scholz?” He would like to know from his party comrade Stephan Weil; “100 percent!” The answer was of course logical. Anna Sauerbrey smiles at the previously unspectacular election campaign of the Federal Minister of Finance and Deputy Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) – true to the motto: “People will notice that I am the right person.” Or will they even notice? For Stephan Weil, his party is on the up again after the disaster year 2019, where “many mistakes” were made. However, you can only achieve success if you pull yourself together.
In the last quarter of an hour of the broadcast, the discussion has already ended, because now Elmar Theveßen can speak on the first 100 days of US President Joe Biden’s term of office. This time not from Washington, but from Hamburg-Altona. “There needs to be more justice in the country,” would have written the Democrat, mocked by the elected Donald Trump as “Sleepy Joe”, on the flag. “Think Big” and “America First” are slogans that apply to him too. The speed with which he would roll up his sleeves and tackle campaign issues such as climate change, job creation for the middle class and tax cuts is also astounding for the Republicans.
ZDF journalist at Markus Lanz: Joe Biden does it very well
This also “inspires” Markus Lanz. Joe Biden’s recognition of the Armenian genocide under the responsibility of the Young Turkish government of the Ottoman Empire formed by the Committee for Unity and Progress during the First World War is another indication that announcements are followed by deeds. “Biden does it very well,” says Elmar Theveßen, “he called Erdoğan the day before and told him that he would announce it.” The big difference to Donald Trump: “Biden only appears when he says something has to say. “
Donald Trump with his countless tweets was only a first-person actor as president. Joe Biden does not conduct any transactional foreign policy. Human rights are important to him. China and Russia should also take note of this. Like Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s and Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s, with the “best possible team around” he would try to “reform in a downright revolutionary way.”
But the ZDF journalist wants to “not rush to praise him about the green clover”. Also because of the midterm elections in the USA in two years time, the elderly Joe Biden should be in a hurry: “He jumps like a tiger, but it remains to be seen whether he will end up as a bedside rug.” Sometimes not only discussions can be fruitful and amusing, but monologues too! (Marc Hairapetian)
