Klausurtagung des Bundeskabinetts im Gästehaus Meseberg Karl Lauterbach Bundesminister für Gesundheit, SPD bei der Ankunft im Rahmen der Klausurtagung des Bundeskabinetts im Gästehaus Meseberg am 30.08.2022. Meseberg Brandenburg Deutschland *** Retreat of the Federal Cabinet in the Guest House Meseberg Karl Lauterbach Federal Minister of Health, SPD upon arrival during the retreat of the Federal Cabinet in the Guest House Meseberg on 30 08 2022 Meseberg Brandenburg Germany

Autumn is just around the corner – and autumn is Lauterbach time. Attention, the Minister of Health is in top form. Because then he can once again devote himself entirely to the topic that brought him to office in the first place: Corona. And Karl Lauterbach warns again that everything could turn out badly.

We know that from last year. No, not that it’s going to be bad, he says; only a kind of premonition drives him on. The minister warns in variants, so to speak, also because his suspicions were by no means always right.

Thank goodness I have to say. And he will say anyway: Just because I warned. But that wasn’t really scientific, and it’s not even now. And yet the professor wants to be a man of science. Well, not everyone in science – and the medical profession – sees him the way he sees himself. On the quiet, the judgments are clear.

Rather, it is as Marco Buschmann says, the Justice Minister of the FDP. Admittedly, she takes a different course with Corona; you can also find it wrong. But Lauterbach is now not only getting on their nerves.

Well, Buschmann says: “I don’t believe in scaremongering at all. There are currently no signs of such virus variants anywhere.” He means virus variants that could lead to an epidemic situation of national importance, school closures again and everything. Doctors, and experts overall, see no indication of this.

It is clear – also Lauterbach – that there is no majority in the Bundestag for further measures. Not only because the Free Democrats think “all hell would have to open up among us before we agree to that”, but because the other coalition partners are becoming more and more skeptical about Lauterbach and his forecasts.

If the SPD is honest, they admit: he only became a minister because he had excelled on talk shows and on Twitter. That made him popular. Lauterbach as Minister of Health of the Hearts – at some point Olaf Scholz could not do otherwise as Chancellor.

And messed up the statics of the cabinet for Lauterbach. Otherwise, a woman would probably be Minister of Health today, Bärbel Bas. In the ministry they would be as happy about it as the rest of politics. Lauterbach just can’t be caught.

One hears: He thinks he knows everything better. The minister confuses, paves the way for panic and makes the craft of governing more difficult for the others. After all, not everything is Corona, his department is about a lot of complicated things, about hospitals, health insurance companies, grants. The secretaries of state don’t have it easy.

Especially since things are not going really well even with Corona. A current draft for combating fraud in rapid corona tests is currently bringing together the Greens and the CSU in staunch rejection. The draft stipulates that the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and the health authorities of the cities and districts should prevent even more fraud.

However, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria declare Lauterbach’s project to be the “worst possible solution”. And now he’s not even the health minister of hearts. He is passed down the popularity list – Karl Lauterbach in the autumn of his work.