Opinion: Basic freedoms are not privileges

Even before Monday's vaccination summit, the calls to give vaccinated people their freedoms back were growing louder. At present, 7% of the population has received both doses and according to the Robert Koch Institute, now pose only a small risk of spreading the virus to others. 

Even the German Ethics Council supports the idea, in light of the recent increase in the number of people now getting inoculated, but only once a vaccine can be offered to everyone.

However, others argue that it would be a slap in the face to young people, who have had to shoulder many burdens for the sake of older generations, if these same older people, once inoculated, were to be given personal freedoms they continue to be denied. 

Shared suffering

Yet there has presumably been no one over the past year who hasn't suffered or felt restricted as a result of the pandemic. People without children saw schools stay open, which drove up infection rates, while parents had to cope with their employers expecting them to work from home without offering any solution to childcare problems. People living alone were pushed into the loneliness of their apartments, devoid of human contacts. Young people threw their future plans overboard and it was no longer possible to visit the elderly in nursing homes.

It wasn't easy for anyone. But at least we were in it together.

And that's why it's all the more incomprehensible that so many people have an "us versus them" mentality: the young vs. the old, families vs. singles, the vaccinated vs. the unvaccinated.  Ultimately, we all have the same goal: to return to a life as close to our pre-pandemic lives as possible. And every step in this direction is a step in the right direction.

The pandemic shouldn't become the new normal

Basic rights aren't privileges. They're the norm. It's not the people who want their rights back who have to explain themselves, but those who want to curtail them.

That's because it's normal, in a free country, to be able to leave and enter the country as often as you'd like. It's also normal to sit with friends in a restaurant and to laugh and chat. It's normal to be able to leave your apartment at night. It's also normal to be able to demonstrate for or against things. All these things are normal. Everyone who has been vaccinated, and is of less danger to others, should be given their rights back, conditions permitting.

A false understanding of solidarity

Of course it's galling to watch an elderly couple who've had their vaccines and have returned from a holiday and don't even need to go into quarantine, while others are still waiting for their first shot.

But it doesn't help anyone if this couple were to be forced to quarantine for no justified reason. Nor would it give a young person his or her future plans back if vaccinated pensioners weren't allowed to meet their inoculated friends for a round of cards.

It's understandable that it seems unfair. But it is in the interests of society in the long run to give people their basic rights back as soon as possible, so they can return to some semblance of normalcy. Because this is where we all want to be headed.

Most people have accepted and adhered to the lockdown measures of the past months because they get that they're in the best interests of society.

And this is also the case with basic freedoms. If some people get them back faster, while others are waiting to join them, there would still be a major benefit to society: These people would be able to support sectors of the economy and the workforces that have been hardest hit by the pandemic. It would give hope to others as they wait to be vaccinated.

And of course, it would also create more of an incentive for people to get vaccinated in the first place, which too is a form of solidarity.