Corona contamination: families with children left in the lurch
WAZ deputy editor-in-chief Alexander Marinos writes "Klartext".
Photo: Funke Media Group
Food. Lauterbach supposedly has everything "under control", while our children are being infected bit by bit. The FDP even wants to loosen as soon as possible.
No air filters, almost nowhere. No compulsory testing in daycare centers. No more individual PCR tests in schools; but no exceptions to compulsory school attendance either. And: No clear statements on vaccinating children between the ages of five and twelve. More and more children are infected with the Omikron variant and bring the virus into their families, infecting parents and grandparents. It is a flawless contagion that scares many mothers and fathers. And what are the politicians doing?? She shrugs her shoulders.
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, whom so many people trust, whom all those who want a policy based on scientific findings, largely free of tactics, oriented only to the welfare of the population – of all people, this "Minister of the Hearts" is currently disappointing across the board. The situation is "under control," he says seriously. He refers to the current situation in hospitals and to the comparatively still low incidence rates among the elderly.
Has he forgotten the children and young people?? Or do they not play a role? Under control? What does that mean?
Now it’s not about abstract statistics
Was and is it not the same Karl Lauterbach, who considers a contamination of day-care centers and schools to be wrong, to be ethically unacceptable?? But this is exactly what is happening. Parents and mothers experience it every day that friendly families or they themselves have to be quarantined. For many, for whom Corona was relatively distant, this is a new experience. Now it’s no longer about abstract statistics, no longer about impacts that are getting closer but do not affect one’s immediate environment.
Now it gets down to the nitty gritty. Those who have children can practically no longer escape the virus, unless they go into total isolation, which is de facto not possible. The own family infects itself now or next week or the week after with a so far still little investigated virus, which affects also through-vaccinated and leads to allegedly mild courses, which do not feel so mild in many cases at all. And what about the long-term consequences, also for the children? Everywhere only shrugs. Doesn’t politics care?
Outrage over rat-child comparison
"What rats were in the time of the plague, children are currently for Covid-19: host animals. They are constantly infected with some virus or other. And what do the irresponsible little half-men do about it?? Nix!"The excitement was great after the satirist and provocateur Jan Bohmermann uttered these sentences in his latest program "ZDF Magazin Royal". Whoever wanted to misunderstand him gratefully accepted the invitation – such as FDP member of parliament Daniel Fost, by his own description a "family man". The Bohmermann quote is "deviantly tasteless". How can you compare children to rats?!
Clear edge, clear opinion – that’s Klartext, the commenting column by Alexander Marinos, deputy editor-in-chief of WAZ. Here current political topics are taken up and subjectively-pointedly classified. This is an opinion piece to approve or disapprove of, to get excited about or upset about.
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Of course the question is wrongly posed; it is a red herring. It is not the satirical exaggeration that is the scandal, but the grievance that Bohmermann exposes here in his own most brutal way possible. What is really "distasteful", dear Mr. family man Fost, is the continued irresponsible profiling policy of your party. No one knows when the crest of this omicron wave will be reached. No one knows whether the hospitals will not fill up in a few weeks, with the still many unvaccinated elderly people, but also with pre-sick children, for whom vaccination was out of the question or – thanks to the sleepy Permanent Vaccination Commission – simply too late.
Joachim Stamp finally wants his Freedom Day
And what is Joachim Stamp, the FDP Vice-Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia, doing?! – NRW Minister for Children and Families? It begins now, while more and more families see themselves in a crisis exceptional situation and feel abandoned by the policy, an opening discussion. What else? What value does our children’s health have, after all, if we are not free to shop and eat and drink at restaurants and bars? (Irony off.) Stamp would like to name a date for the liberals’ beloved "Freedom Day" once again. But the term, because even then it was the label for a grave error, has been burned.
Otherwise, the FDP remains true to itself. It is also responsible for the complete communication disaster surrounding the need for compulsory vaccination – with the result that this compulsory vaccination, although there are still good reasons for it and a broad majority in the population, may not come at all or not in time. Granted: It is a piece of speculation. But if it weren’t for the FDP in the governing coalition, Lauterbach would have been able to stay true to himself and his preministerial policy and present an airtight bill for the federal government.
CDU and CSU forget state policy responsibility
As an aside, he would have deprived the CDU and CSU of the opportunity to attack the government for its strange abstention instead of taking responsibility for state policy in the opposition. Because that is exactly what the CDU/CSU faction in the Bundestag is not doing at the moment, even though their own minister presidents in the federal states want mandatory vaccination. Because they are pragmatic enough to know that only compulsory vaccination guarantees that we will not experience the sixth wave in the coming fall and winter – at worst a delta wave, as some researchers fear.
And so we "family people" observe, somewhat stunned, the upwardly exploding no-more-all-cups-in-the-closet incidence of politics of all parties. Thanks for nothing!
The chancellor remains invisible
By the way, this is also addressed to you, dear Chancellor Schulte, Schulz – what is your name?? You came into office because people wanted a head of government who would take things in hand calmly but decisively. The fact that a virus is preparing to rush through the majority of the entire population in a very short time is completely unprecedented. That a head of government should make himself so invisible in a situation like this, however, is also a shame. Not even your predecessor could have done that, and she was already quite good at it.