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The pandemic is forcing Germany, the land of engineers and industry, into lockdown.
Hardly any other economy in the world has more knowledge and experience when it comes to modern technology.
The long list of technical inventions of German origin is legend.
Engineering, i.e. the planning and control of complex processes that interlock link by link and thus become perfectly organized value chains, is part of the DNA of the local industry.
This is one of the reasons why few other societies have benefited as much from industrial globalization as the German one.
“Made in Germany” and “Vorsprung durch Technik” are seals of approval that set the standard for the highest quality, the finest precision and the best organization.
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The technical prerequisites for answering questions of the future with technological advances are therefore given in Germany without any discussion - better than anywhere else.
In a dramatic way, however, there is a lack of political will and social acceptance in this country to rely on innovation in overcoming existential challenges.
This has been shown in energy policy, also in environmental and climate policy and also in genetic engineering and now also in the fight against Covid-19.
Instead of specifying technical innovations, how they have to take moral concerns, ethical reservations, and cultural and social requirements into account, they are banned in Germany - as is the case with nuclear energy or genetic research.
The technology hostility is tragic
Or a corona warning app is propagated that protects against data theft, but not against Covid-19.
Environmental and climate policy, gene and corona policy are bursting with fetters that are intended to keep the rapid, widespread dissemination of new technologies in check.
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The technology hostility is so tragic because engineers and their critics are far closer to one another than angry demonstrators during loud protest marches against nuclear power, coal-fired power plants or genetic engineering want to admit.
There is no serious voice to be heard from German business that does not share the goal of preventing and stopping global warming and environmental pollution, the extinction of species and the deforestation of rainforests as quickly and sustainably as possible.
It is just as indisputable that the view that genetic engineering, in addition to many opportunities, is associated with a number of risks that must be minimized or excluded.
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Fundamentally, however, opinions differ on the question of what role technology should play in the fight against climate change and for an environment worth living in.
Some claim that modern technologies - from power plants to internal combustion engines - are the cause of all ecological problems.
Using technology and technology for the benefit of society
That is why they see prohibitions as the solution.
The others can convincingly prove that, historically, innovations have always been the engine of economic and thus also of social development.
More than anything else - political ideologies or religious dogmas - they have ensured that humanity is better off today and that the life expectancy for newborns in all societies is higher than ever before.
But the supporters of technical progress do not penetrate politically.
We know so much and do so incredibly little to use technology for the good of society.
Instead, prohibitions and restrictions block the view of things as far as the eye can see.
As if bans were sustainable solutions.
The opposite is the case.
At best, bans buy time, but do not bring decisive corrections forward into a better world.
In the worst case, however, prohibitions and hostility to technology delay or prevent innovation that tackles the root causes of problems and not just their symptoms.
Really sustainable, viable solutions that save the climate and the environment, improve people's lives and prolong human lives, come late or even too late.
Negative consequences of bans only felt late
How brutally a concentration on bans instead of innovation can take revenge for a society is shown by Covid-19 and its fight.
The defensive strategy of containment has dominated since the outbreak of the pandemic.
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With contact bans, social isolation and a shutdown of the economy, each time replaced by occasional easing, one wants to move on from the first to the second and finally to the perm until one distant day herd immunity is achieved thanks to vaccines.
As behavioral economics teaches, it should come as no surprise that politicians prefer to prohibit and prescribe too much rather than too little.
Especially in a federal election year, a strong political fist seems to count more than the invisible hands of future generations in a demographically aging society.
Bans and ordinances take effect comparatively quickly - and their negative consequences only become noticeable later.
They should apply nationwide, regardless of the individually very different risks.
Many consider equal treatment to be fair, although it contradicts the logic of target accuracy and efficiency, which in itself requires treating unequal things unequally.
What makes you speechless is the fact that federal politics, with the consent of the states, takes the right to prohibit in some places, but then forces municipalities and states to bear the consequences - for example if the schools "or whatever" are closed.
Interplay of lockdown and relaxation
An offensive pandemic policy geared towards technology and technology would have focused on innovation from the first day of the outbreak.
Containment or eradication would also have been on the agenda - but not at the top of the list.
From the very beginning, there would have been the adaptation to a life with the virus, the protection of the particularly endangered and the search for vaccines for (herd) immunization and for drugs to contain the consequences of the disease.
Regular screening of the nursing staff, faster mass tests and more effective breathing masks for people at risk were also part of it.
Instead, German politics has focused primarily on the resounding effect of an interplay between lockdown and relaxation - that is, bans and their tightening or lifting - which has now proven to be a fatal error.
An offensive pandemic policy would have used intelligent information and communication technology to collect, collect and evaluate infection data from the outset in order to know as much as possible about Covid-19, its characteristics, spread and effects as quickly as possible.
Something smarter than bans
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She would have used the latest technology in contact tracing and had apps programmed that enable contacts and infections to be traced and traced in real time anywhere.
She would have actively taken up legitimate concerns about data security, resolved and fought against the misuse of personal data with all the means a constitutional state has.
She would have examined how existing information and communication systems of public (security) facilities could be used to quickly and securely record personal data for limited periods of time, to network it and to use it sensibly in the fight against Covid-19.
From day one, she would have done everything to ensure that approved vaccines were used across the board without any further delay.
Instead, an app has been put into circulation that doesn't even come close to what should be done.
And - even worse - far too much time is being lost before mass vaccination (with a vaccine that has been approved for a long time) will probably not begin for weeks.
Dear fellow citizens, the situation is indeed grave and sad.
But it is never - not even now - too late to change strategy.
Prohibitions, lockdowns and isolation may indeed be the best of all bad alternatives in the short term.
But they never offer a long-term or even sustainable solution.
Society and politics must come up with something smarter than bans.
This also applies to organizational innovations in everyday processes to protect people at risk - such as special bus, tram or train car compartments, shopping times, hairdressing appointments or a delivery service for the elderly.
Same time pressure for climate and environmental policy
Who else but Germany can respond to existential crises so efficiently and effectively with technology and innovation?
There is no reason and no justification for not using new technologies with all your might from tomorrow in order to achieve a lead through technology.
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This would enable us to become faster than the virus and its spread, or to slow down global warming more quickly than before, or, thanks to advances in genetic engineering, find better drugs or more pest-resistant plants.
Nobody will understand that everything humanly possible is not being done now to fight with modern technology for every single minute that can be gained from the start of vaccination.
The same time pressure also speaks in favor of a rapid change in strategy away from bans and towards innovation in climate and environmental policy or in the cultivation of high-yielding seeds.
Only if we start now and now to rely on technology and not bans, will we have convincing answers to offer when future generations ask us what we have done for their future worth living.