German Christian Democrat deputy: Compulsory vaccination is dead

It was a peculiar debate in the German Bundestag on Thursday. Four of the six members of the Bundestag Presidium, although double vaccinated and boosted, were in isolation because of an infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is why the two remaining Bundestag Vice Presidents, Katrin Göring-Eckardt (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) and Petra Pau (Die Linke), are currently leading all debates alternately.

Among those infected with SARS-CoV-2 is Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki (FDP), one of the initiators of a group application that rejects a legal obligation to vaccinate against COVID-19 and instead wants to intensify low-threshold vaccination offers. Kubicki wrote on his Facebook page that he "thankfully only had mild flu symptoms" but could "due to isolation not take part in the session of the German Bundestag". And further: "I'm boosted and still infectious. This shows that the state-mandated obligation to vaccinate is completely pointless." It is "finally time that we and the other European countries orientate ourselves and get out of the panic mode again".

But that's exactly what the advocates of a general vaccination requirement from the age of 18 seemed to have no interest in. German daily Die Tagespost reports that Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck explained that "basic protection in society" cannot be achieved with voluntary vaccinations. "The freedom interpretation of the few" should not lead to "permanent restriction of the freedom of the many." "The people in this country" are fed up with that. "Let's finally get this pandemic over with, let's get rid of the virus and then return to freedom," said Habeck.

However, now, there is no majority in the Bundestag for compulsory vaccination. "At the moment, the vaccination requirement is dead, " says the Union faction deputy leader, Sepp Müller.

Impact

The discussion about vaccination for coronavirus has impacted Christians across the world. Last week, the Catholic German website Katholisch.de reported that Pope Francis had relieved a Puerto Rican bishop who defended believers who, for reasons of conscience, did not want to comply with the vaccination requirement in the corona pandemic. Daniel Fernandez Torres (57) also refused to sign a paper from the Puerto Rican Bishops' Conference that said the unvaccinated should not participate in church activities.