Retailers are increasingly suffering from the ban on entry and the forced entry controls. Gunnar Schupelius criticizes that the Senate is refusing to repeal 2G, even though this measure has no effect on the infection process.
The Senate on Tuesday again refused to overturn the 2G retail rule. After that, you can only enter a shop if you are vaccinated or have recovered. Grocery stores and drugstores are exempt.
Reasonable reasons for the ban on entry were not provided, only general references to the “Omicron Wall”. However, there is no connection between the 2G rule and the development of the pandemic.
Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Saarland and Lower Saxony show this. 2G was already overturned there and the infection process did not change. Hesse will follow, Schleswig-Holstein wants to abolish 2G on February 9th.
Retailers are complaining about falling income. In November 2021, after the 2G rule came into force, sales fell by 5.5 percent. Since then it has continued to go down. The reserves have been used up after two years of corona regulations and lockdown.
Conversely, the federal states in which 2G was abolished prove that things can go up again. In Baden-Württemberg, for example, retail sales increased by 10 to 15 percent after the end of 2G.
And it’s not just falling revenue that’s making retailers desperate. The forced controls at the entrance to the shop also cause major problems. The trade association reports of aggressive customers and staff who cannot mentally withstand the conflicts during the control.
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The federal government offers compensation for security guards (bridging aid IV). But that remains gray theory because good staff is hard to find on the market.
In addition, many companies do not meet the bureaucratically narrow criteria. A drop in sales of 30 percent compared to 2019 must be proven. Anyone who is 29.5 percent in the red gets nothing.
The need is so great that even the food trade, which is not affected by 2G, is getting involved. Aldi, Lidl, Rewe and Edeka sent an urgent letter to the top politicians and asked them to lift the bans.
“We share the deep existential concerns of the stationary non-food trade,” says the letter, which is also available to the Governing Mayor Giffey (SPD).
No reaction is known from her. Her representative, Transport Senator Jarasch (Greens), flatly claimed on Tuesday that “now is not the right time for an opening debate”.
That’s how people talk when their salary is secure. But if you have to make sales because you would otherwise go bankrupt, you see it very differently. He no longer understands the world because it cannot be understood at all.
Because there is no proof that 2G has a positive influence on the infection process, that is an assertion. And there’s no factual reason to keep 2G in retail, none at all.
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