At the start of the pandemic, there was a big, warm sense of collective responsibility. Then the collective effort subsided and the vaccination campaign came to a standstill. What does this mean for the society of the future?
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Johan Schloemann
In the spring of last year – it felt like a long time ago – the fight against the spread of the coronavirus was declared a major community effort. It was not state restrictions, which were the controversial means of choice in the later waves, called “measures” in cold administrative language, that seemed to be able to bring down the contagion curve primarily, but a warm, great feeling of responsibility. Only if “the people” took part of their own accord, it was said at the time, out of caring fear for the elderly and of full intensive care units, only then could the worst be prevented.