"By the end of this winter everyone in Germany will either be vaccinated, recovered or dead,"
Says Germany's health minister. Wonder if our government will say anything similar....
I wondered if this quotation would make its way across the Channel. It was a clever play on words. I think very belatedly that the danger of the virus, and the fact that if you are unvaccinated you will catch it sometime between now and Easter has concentrated minds and the willingness to be vaccinated has started to increase. Too late to stop the fourth wave. The bluntness of the acting health minister's words reflect some of the frustration at about 20% of the adult population refusing to get vaccinated, and thereby become drivers of the infection rate, and overloading of hospitals.
On the other hand, the same health minister said a short while ago it was right to allow the emergency country-wide legislation to lapse (yesterday), sending a clear signal that the pandemic was nearly over. He had to backtrack on this extremely quickly, but the damage was done. The replacement legislation does not allow for curfews or lockdowns on the grounds they may be unconstitutional, and has pushed responsibility back to the states/Länder.
It's agonising watching the political class make the same mistakes as last year, mainly in dithering. My opinion is they are simply worn out. It has long been apparent that a 70% vaccination rate is insufficient for the new variant although it would have been enough a year ago. This fact does not seem to have sunk into the brains of those who make decisions.
There is a power vacuum because the newly elected government is not in office yet, and the old has to continue on a caretaker basis until the new is sworn in. Merkel will be missed - she summoned the leaders of the new coalition to the Chancellery a couple of days ago and from what has leaked out basically told them 'you've got to do more than this and you've got to do it now'. Couldn't come at a worse time.
