In the first issue in the new studio, ZDF Magazin Royale is dedicated to the global corona vaccine distribution. A prominent virologist also has her say.
Can you already hear the words pandemic, incidence, variants and corona? Congratulations, you belong to what is – by today’s standards – an almost worryingly unanimous majority of 7.9 billion people worldwide. You have to get it first…
In Germany, the incidence is now in the four-digit range, and as an average citizen, the red tone of the warning tile in the Corona warning app is more familiar these days than that on any stop sign. And who is to blame? A vaccine shortage? The romantic? Children? Parents? Just a kink in the global immune system?
ZDF Magazin Royale: Corona and the “third German pandemic year”
The ZDF Magazin Royale, which was still quite cheerful at the beginning of the “third German pandemic year”, also has something to contribute to the topic. Spoiler Alert: Jan Böhmermann is back – and he seems kind of annoyed. That’s not just because some electro snippets are constantly banging out of the loudspeakers, which obviously arose from the creative hobby of the incumbent FDP Federal Minister of Justice. A member of Böhmermann’s editorial team must have dug deep into the Soundcloud archive for the beats from Marco Buschmann’s track “Excalibur calls for Arthur”.
As Böhmermann introduces the first show from the new studio of the ZDF format in Cologne-Ehrenfeld, 2022 should be a year of hope and lightness, if you can believe the “Wendy horoscope of Pope Benedict”. Hope and lightness, in times like these this is probably the new definition of optimism.
To the broadcast
ZDF Magazin Royal runs every Friday evening at 11:15 p.m. You can see the current episode in the ZDF media library.
Corona: Virologist Brinkmann explains the immune system in ZDF Magazin Royale
For all those who still don’t understand at this point how vaccinations help the immune system, Böhmermann has invited prominent support to the studio. The Braunschweig virologist Melanie Brinkmann explains (actually for how many times?) how the thing with the innate immune system and the T-cells works.
And so that mainstream viewers finally get to hear counter-arguments, a “studio guest” also occasionally makes prominent Facebook comment column positions for the best. Once again the audience area of the studio remains empty except for him. But who would let the corona measures or a “woken cancel culture clown” like Böhmermann take away their freedom of opinion?
ZDF Magazin Royale on the subject of vaccines: Europe doesn’t want to, Africa can’t
Yes, the low vaccination rate is without question one of the current biggest problems of the pandemic, in which Germany – according to the wonderful neologism of Böhmermann’s team of authors – could have become the “world market leader in ending the pandemic”. But what is much more significant is that “we spoiled, lateral-thinking Germans are rejecting a vaccine that people in the Global South cannot reject because there isn’t one”. According to statistics from the Our World in Data portal, while 1.19 billion doses of corona vaccine were vaccinated in Europe at the end of January, there are just 347 million in Africa. A good 60 percent of the population on one continent, around 10 percent on the other.
Maybe a bit of a loop at the end of the show isn’t so bad after all. “Global problems need global solutions”, “It will never end”, “The next pandemic is bound to come”. It’s almost as nice as the constant forecasts from experts and politicians that you could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. So if not a new variant and… oh well…
Jan Böhmermann’s ZDF Magazin Royale: Vaccination doses are donated shortly before they expire
In comparison, it is almost plausible when Biontech boss Özlem Türeci explains as an expert in a television interview that the release of vaccine patents can lead to nothing except chaotic scenes in global vaccine production. Or a senior official at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development is quoted on Twitter with the groundbreaking conclusion that if you can’t cook, no cookbook will help you either. How did Jamie Oliver rise to fame and fortune? Poetics with grams?
But there is still one way to protect people in poorer countries: Simply deport millions of stashed vaccine doses just before the expiration date, which can then be disposed of a short time later on site in Nigeria, for example. Then there is talk of donations, as well as freedom for those who prefer to deal with the corona pandemic without being vaccinated – without knowing who they could endanger with this decision, their job or a loved one. If hope and lightness are the new definition of optimism, then arguably that is the new definition of humor. (ska)
