Opinion: A 3G or 2G certificate does not eradicate uncertainty

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Whether 3G or 2G – if you want to get in, you have to show your proof. It’s clear enough, but what is supposed to alleviate worries triggers new fears: We need more transparency about our transparency.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, fear of illness, fear for others, fear of ruin, fear of people hating each other, fear of a disappearing trust in everything, weariness and tiredness have been alternating.

I read everything or nothing at all, suppress, inform myself, realize with astonishment that I am neither a statistician nor a virologist. I have no idea.

What could have made the last year and a half more enjoyable? Possibly honest, clear communication from politicians, or more factual reporting that does without words like impfling and spades.

Now what always happens in times of fear has occurred: People despise – instead of a disease – each other. Divide into supporters or opponents of measures, each camp looks for evidence of the correctness of their own thinking, all look for security and find: nothing.

Perhaps it might help to know that almost everyone is afraid. Well, almost everyone, except presumably the people who appear on the “Forbes” list of the super-rich; but what do I know if the people who are about to be shot into space have to show Corona certificates.

With what could the control tool be supplemented?
And this is where the mixing of medicine and politics begins. The world has just come through 20 years of the war on terror, which involved many in a pointless war and brought massive restrictions on basic rights for the rest. So – for those who had basic rights, there were airport checks, X-ray machines, state Trojans, dragnets, surveillance and biometric cameras, risk classifications at borders.

When we (with passports from Western industrialized countries) faced closed borders in the time of the pandemic, one could briefly reflect on the privileges, because the majority of the world’s population either cannot travel at all or only with visas, waiting time, health questionnaires. If people in Western countries do not want to be vaccinated, they have a choice that the majority of the world’s population does not have.

In the western world, the health certificate is being used with vehemence right now, which does not seem to make unlimited medical sense, because it can mislead people into a false carelessness in closed rooms without masks and is not forgery-proof. On the black market, it is apparently possible to purchase digital vaccination certificates for around 150 euros at the moment. The certificates can be easily produced by professionals. With this, the argument of the certificate’s security against the vaccination certificate loses a bit of momentum.

It just seems unlikely to many that the control tool can be supplemented indefinitely. With all health data, religious affiliation, political activities. But that would be possible, just as it would be possible to exclude citizens from public life, from transportation, university places, jobs or adoptions. Certainly, even now almost all the information about individuals is somewhere, but how complicated the interconnection of different offices is, we have been able to observe for more than a year.

Just as it once seemed unbelievable that the state would load spy software onto the computers of journalists and activists, or that freedom of movement would be restricted in the country of one’s citizenship.

Back to the beginning. Right now, in addition to protecting the population, it seems at least as important that it not be further divided and radicalized. With clear communication and transparent measures, much of the population rift could have been prevented, and trust in health ministries and governments would have been strengthened.

It would have been an opportunity to improve misguided decisions about social policy, about the value of the health care system, and about communication between politicians and the public. This can happen with honest communication beyond the election campaign, and if there were no other solution than proof of health status, then it would be important to point out the risks here as well.