Get vaccinated to get clubs reopened, intones German health minister

Berlin (dpa) – The best way to reopen Berlin’s club scene – shut down by the pandemic like a dance hall serving stale beer and bad retro hits – is to get as much of the population vaccinated as possible, the country’s health minister told club owners on Saturday.

The best way to secure reopening would be to get the country’s vaccination rate up towards 80 per cent, Jens Spahn told the struggling entrepreneurs during an event about the industry’s future.

“Then we could get through the autumn and winter pretty safely,” he said. But he added that there are no guarantees, noting how much of the world thought it had gotten ahead of the coronavirus only a few months ago only to see case counts spike again as a mutated version of the disease, the Delta variant, began to claim more lives.

Right now Germany has seen about 60 per cent of residents get fully vaccinated. After strong interest for the jabs earlier this year, doctors have reported a significant drop-off in interest, calling into question whether 80 per cent is achievable.

The question of how to reopen is existential for Berlin’s cultural, concert and nightlife scene, which is also important for tourism. All have been hit hard by the lockdowns and social-distancing rules necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic.

The club scene has been largely shut since March 2020, though people are partying outside again.

Spahn said he can provide no hard dates or guarantees. “I can’t tell you what’s going to be happening in December. He said he couldn’t see Germany attempting a Freedom Day – as was recently announced in Britain – when coronavirus controls fall away. But he said there is scope for model projects that would allow dancers to hit the floors again.

The meeting in the Kreuzberg district club Ritter Butzke was moderated by Kevin Kratzsch, a candidate for Spahn’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) hoping to enter the Bundestag in next month’s general election. Exchanges were testy at time.

“I know clubs, I’ll say it again, whether you trust me or not, better than you think,” said Spahn after accusations he didn’t understand the industry.

But club owners, who said they felt abandoned during the health crisis, weren’t in the most charitable of moods.

“I am at the limits of my anger,” said Marcus Phol, speaking for entrepreneurs in the events business, noting that Spahn had ignored past pleas for meetings.

But Spahn said the shutdowns had been a response to an acute health crisis.

“This is the most serious crisis since the foundation of our country,” he said. “The virus is the spoilsport, not the health minister.”

There have already been attempts to get clubs up and running. Multiple clubs cooperated with Berlin’s Charite hospital in recent weeks, administering polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests to clubgoers. Club operators say the results gave them hope of returning to normal soon.

Spahn said he had not seen the results yet, but was open for ideas, arguing that if the test had shown a reopening was safe, then it should go ahead, but one step at a time. The goal is not to keep lockdowns in place longer than necessary.

The Administrative Court ruled last week that dance events are no longer banned in principle. Events for the vaccinated and people who have recovered from Covid-19 are therefore to be permitted for the time being.

Music festivals and live concerts with an audience are now back in Berlin – with coronavirus restrictions.

And Pamela Schobess, head of Berlin’s club commission, pointed out that this is not just an issue of making money.

“We can do something that will make people feel better,” she pointed out.

dpa