The Federal Minister of Health recently blamed science for decisions in the corona pandemic.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin Overall, Germany came through the pandemic well. The feared collapse of the healthcare system and the economy did not materialize.
However, this must not hide the fact that there is fatal communication, short-sightedness and chaotic crisis management. It was short-sighted to close the schools and thus neglect the consequences for the children and their education.
Blaming science for this, as Health Minister Karl Lauterbach recently did, falls far short of the mark. It was also short-sighted to call for new measures and at the same time to avoid an exit plan.
Around the federal election, the word freedom was more common on the signs of the corona deniers than on the election posters of the FDP. Other countries – such as Great Britain – already had a Freedom Day in mind. Because you need a goal to work toward.
In addition, Germany lagged behind when it came to important decisions. The many deaths in the first Corona winter could have been avoided if the nursing homes had been better protected. Even in the second Corona winter, Germany was largely unprepared, overslept the booster campaign and then had to take hasty measures that hit the unvaccinated in particular.
Decisions don’t get better if nobody gets involved
It’s called federalism. Germany is not so easy to rule from top to bottom – because the states and parliaments have a say in many important issues. During the pandemic, however, parliaments were dwarfed into nodding bodies. The sometimes abstruse measures were decided by the prime minister and the federal government in night meetings behind closed doors.
In Berlin you were no longer allowed to sit alone on a park bench, and in many federal states you were not allowed to go out on the street if there were a certain number of cases. Otherwise, high fines threatened. Curfews, bans on accommodation, 3G, 2G, 2G Plus, snow chains, emergency brakes – it was up to the courts to clear this completely overcrowded catalog of measures before political reason took hold.
In crises, things have to be done quickly. But the pandemic has shown that decisions do not get better if parliaments and the public are not involved. Especially not when politics is based on the support of the population.
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The communication was also fatal: from abrupt U-turns in compulsory vaccination to harmful arrogance with which different opinions were ironed out, to Lauterbach’s horror forecasts, which never came true. The population had to piece together the how and why of measures. The result was conspiracy theories and crumbling support.
Another weak point was the authorities and public institutions that were completely overwhelmed and unable to cope with crises. Schools are poorly equipped to this day, many still have no digital learning and teaching materials. And it took years for the health authorities to switch to digital solutions.
With boxes full of contact slips and handwritten infection lists, Germany made itself the laughingstock of Europe. Four years after the start of the pandemic, doctors and nurses who worked until they were exhausted can only hope that the situation in the clinics will improve many years from now – that’s how long Lauterbach’s planned hospital reforms will take. The fact that the healthcare system is largely as analog after the pandemic as it was before is a scandal in itself – with all its consequences, such as terrible data blindness.
The fact that Germany got off lightly in an international comparison is also thanks to fortunate circumstances. However, the crisis management did not live up to the claim of being a leading European power.
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