Compulsory vaccination yes or no? The Federal President calls for a particularly careful political debate on this radical measure. And he leads it himself – even with opponents of mandatory vaccination.
Berlin – Frank-Walter Steinmeier stayed calm for an hour and a half. Very quiet. Then a “No, I don’t think so” breaks out of him.
“The numbers speak a clear language”, the teacher Gudrun Gessert from Baden-Württemberg has just pointed out to him. She tries to refute with individual indicators “that unvaccinated people selfishly fill the hospitals”. Steinmeier holds against it with scientific knowledge and other figures.
The Federal President has invited to a discussion on the pros and cons of a general vaccination requirement. They want to discuss this with each other “and also like to argue respectfully,” says Steinmeier. And then he gets this respectful argument. Some of the participants sit in the great hall of his official residence, Schloss Bellevue, while others, such as Gessert, are connected from a distance.
Gessert vehemently emphasizes that he is not against vaccination, but against compulsory vaccination. “Compulsory vaccination is not suitable for overcoming the pandemic,” explains the teacher, who leaves Steinmeier’s question as to whether she has been vaccinated herself. “Compulsory vaccination is problematic for society because it polarizes,” is one of their arguments. A compulsory vaccination would be “medically in no way justifiable”, says another.
Gessert questions the effectiveness of the vaccines, certifies them to have dangerous side effects and warns of an endless loop of vaccines and boosters. Oliver Foeth, who came from Bamberg, argues in a very similar way. He thinks it is “immoral, given the knowledge we have about the available vaccines, to impose a compulsory vaccination or compulsory vaccination by prescription.”
Prof. Kai Nagel from the Technical University of Berlin counters those who doubt the effectiveness of the vaccines that the vaccination of the Delta variant was indeed the “game changer”, that is, it brought down the number of infections. “With the Omikron, this is no longer the case with regard to the incidences, but it is no longer with regard to the severe courses”. Nagel develops models for the spread of the virus. “With Omikron, the question is whether we can get away with a black eye or not,” he says. For this variant, a compulsory vaccination would come too late anyway.
From Cornelia Betsch’s point of view, it is questionable whether it would bring anything at all. The professor from Erfurt has initiated long-term studies on attitudes and behavior of vaccinated and unvaccinated people. “Among the people who are not vaccinated in our surveys, the vast majority actually say: I definitely do not want to be vaccinated.” That is 60 to 70 percent.
There are many ways to get people to vaccinate, says the scientist. Above all, one must ask oneself why they did not want to be vaccinated. Research shows that very many are simply afraid of it. “That makes it psychologically a hot debate, something emotional. (…) If you are afraid of something and it is threatened with an obligation, then it triggers a counter-feeling in people. “
How strong this “counter-feeling” is building up in the republic in particular is shown by the numerous and sometimes more rowdy demonstrations by opponents of vaccination and mandatory vaccination.
Steinmeier probably had this in mind when he called for a particularly careful debate on this issue from politicians. “Such an extraordinary measure also places our state in an extraordinary duty to its citizens. In short: compulsory vaccination means compulsory debate. ”Particularly high demands must be made on the justification for such an extraordinary measure – all the more since politicians have explicitly ruled out compulsory vaccination for a long time.
“A general compulsory vaccination is certainly not part of everyday legislative life for the Bundestag and the federal government, and the process of debate, consideration and justification must not be an everyday occurrence,” says Steinmeier. Indirectly, he speaks to the process of the traffic light coalition to clarify the question not through a government bill, but through cross-faction group motions in the Bundestag. dpa
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