Corona policy: Hoping for a miracle doesn’t help

In the corona pandemic, the otherwise orderly and well-organized Germany does not cut a good figure: A disaster is revealed in which no one wants to take the lead.

It is a complete disaster. No wonder that many citizens just shake their heads and trust in the skills of politicians is reaching new lows every day: The federal and state corona management can only make you despair. Everyone knows that such a virus cannot be prayed away, and yet one has the impression that politicians are hoping for a miracle instead of preventing, taking precautions, and moving ahead.

A federal-state switchboard is hastily set up, unsorted and messy, with work orders and test reports. In the middle of the high phase of the pandemic: “See you again on Thursday”. After all, there will soon be a general compulsory vaccination, whatever it may be.

Federalism as a stumbling block

But what happened to this supposedly well-ordered, disciplined and well-organized country called Germany in this pandemic? Is that still Germany or can it go away? Federalism may have its strengths, but when it comes to fighting pandemics – with a virus that knows neither country nor national borders – it is simply an obstacle. Nobody can see through what is valid and what is not. The federal government, the federal government, points to the federal states, the federal states yell like small children to the federal government. Responsibility is not taken on, but passed on, but of course only for what is going badly. With best regards to Bavaria.

The fact that an executive federal government does not only act according to the petrification principle – i.e. no longer making groundbreaking, far-reaching decisions, but is literally petrified – does not make things any better. Olaf Scholz, Chancellor in Spe, seems trapped in his hybrid role: still finance minister, not yet chancellor. The man who allegedly said, “If you order a guide from me, you will also get it”, was silent for a long time and apparently waited for someone to come by and give him a guide.

Everyone against everyone – everyone for himself

The only thing that Scholz came up with on the fly: a crisis management team and a committee of experts. As a reminder: There has been a crisis team in the pandemic for 99 working days, and experts on Corona have so far not held back with their views. But they just didn’t want to hear them in the summer when the election campaign and CDU staff chaos required different priorities and votes were more important than an annoying pandemic.

Corona shows absolutely relentlessly what is wrong in this country: There is no one who can say and wants to say where it is going. In the health crisis, everyone fights against everyone – and unfortunately more and more people are only fighting for themselves.

Ideally, we wouldn’t need these wandering politicians: if we were to take care of each other in the best of all worlds – our old people, our sick, our children. If we cared for others as much as we did for ourselves. That sounds naive. That’s naive. But it would be nice – and the easiest way out of the disaster.