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Poor government!
Just now she had to explain in a mantra-like manner why the “Lockdown Light” is the right strategy to fight the pandemic - even if you are putting livelihoods at risk.
“The measures that we are now taking,” the Chancellor announced on October 29, in a self-confident indicative, “are suitable, necessary and proportionate.” Now things are looking completely different again.
The "easy" lockdown is no longer good, a "hard" one should be, as Angela Merkel now explained in the Bundestag.
Was there a correction to the old statement that was supposed to reassure the courts at the time?
Has an error been admitted?
No, nothing like that.
From the point of view of politics, their tailor-made strategy only failed because of the citizens.
“All the appeals were of no use,” is the devastating testimony that Saxony's Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) issues to his compatriots.
“There has been a meander in some places,” says his CSU colleague Markus Söder in the language of a caretaker who has burst his collar.
And Jens Spahn (CDU), the Minister of Health, whispers that responsible for the situation in the intensive care units are the people who coldly drink a distant mulled wine.
Citizens' fault
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The key political figures seem to hope that nobody notices the contradiction: First, a course is taken that does not focus on personal responsibility, but on closings, strict contact restrictions and curfews in hotspots.
But if this path does not lead to the goal, the unreasonable citizens are to blame.
Moralising hides the fact that those responsible are not doing their job.
As in autumn, they act as if they were faced with a completely unpredictable situation in which only toughness helps.
There is no prospect of this, because a “hard lockdown”, as France shows, chokes off the infection dynamics along with social and economic life, but in the end it only sets them going again.
Söder claims that “trading until Christmas” is better than “a permanent stop-and-go”.
But does he really think the virus will stop operating on January 10th?
Instead of rhetorically “crashing a plane every day” and stirring up fear, which can then be served with symbolic politics, Söder and his colleagues would have done their homework better.
How can it be that in nine months of the pandemic you haven't organized enough nursing staff, that you haven't upgraded the health authorities, whose limited capacities are ultimately used as a basis for the measures?
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It is a scandal that the prime ministers did not organize early masks and tests for the retirement homes, a measure that could prevent lockdowns.
Does Söder want to use his "Schlendrian" to distract from the fact that, as the head of the Bavarian authorities, he shares responsibility for the "airplane" that crashes into the inadequately protected homes every day?
But maybe the politics, which shimmy from tightening to tightening and each time claiming that we only have to "make another effort" (Merkel), no longer has the strength to plan for the long term.
It's also nerve-wracking.
What are Merkel, Söder and Spahn supposed to do in January if the unreliable population also puts the “hard lockdown” in the sand?