Last night on ARD (German public TV, Channel One)....they ran the Hart Aber Fair public chat forum ('Hard But Fair). I like the show because they try to have opposing viewpoints and the moderator will force questions if the guy/gal is giving a marginal answer.
Topic? Well...is the Covid 2G situation (either you are vaxed-up or recovered, to walk into discount shops around Germany). The non-vax folks are forbidden entry. The idea was....you'd shape them up to force into the vaccination. If you look at actual numbers since that 'order' was given.....it didn't turn out much on higher numbers, but certainly lessened profit for shops, with less customers showing up.
So in the midst of this forum (live, I should note)....they had Professor-Doctor Carsten Watzl talking about things now, and how this will trend for Christmas 2022. It was NOT encouraging news.
In simple blunt words....the doctor went to forecast that Covid 'doom' is something now to expect every winter. He even made the comment...."Next winter will look like this as well."
If you were a German watching this.....you had to be fairly distressed and bitter. The term....repeated torture....probably fits as well.
Most all German shops (from electronics, to clothing)....counted on a successful Christmas season....to ensure the bottom line for the entire year. They could survive a single bad season with no whining or complaints. A second season, or a projection of a decade of dismal profits? They can't survive in this type of environment.
I've made a few trips into Mainz and Wiesbaden for this Christmas season. I have zero interest in standing in a line to be 'audited' by some entry-level guy to shop at a store. It wouldn't matter if this were five or ten minutes.
Even if you make into a shop....the minute I hear a cough within thirty feet of where I'm standing....I'm uncomfortable and head to the exit. Maybe it was just a sore throat cough....maybe it was a cold cough, or maybe it was a Covid cough. I don't care to qualify the damn cough.
I'm skeptical of the 2G gimmick and would be more assured if everyone inside had been tested in the past twelve hours.
What happens when we enter November 2022? It's anyone's guess but I would imagine doom, despair, dashed hopes and misery will follow.
Last night, my wife (German in nature) and I ended up at the Wiesbaden Christmas Market. We decided to venture to the forbidden zone (where food and beverages are sold). To enter....you have to be 2G. There's guys there to survey your 'pass'. Hired-up security? Yeah. I'd guess that the city has at least fifty folks hired and wearing some type of 'security' vest.....to attempt to make the 2G Christmas Market work.
So here's the 'success' I saw. First, in the non-food area.....sales and customers are simply not there. I'd guess at best.....they are making 50-percent of a normal typical season. Second, even in the food/beverage area.....it was pretty thin. To get a gluhwein....I just walked up (no line) and in 30 seconds had a cup. This was around 6 PM, and there were maybe 40-percent of the normal crowd hanging out. Finally, in this food/beverage area....about 99 percent of the folks had no masks on....while sipping their beverage or eating. Frankly, I was skeptical of the safeness.
Perhaps Doctor Watzl was right.....we just need to reach a new level of acceptance....that Covid is never going away.
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