Ethics Council Chairwoman calls for a review of the Corona period

The chairwoman of the Ethics Council, Buyx, is calling for a better analysis of the corona pandemic and its consequences. In an interview with the Deutschlandfunk She said the pandemic was the greatest social crisis since the Second World War.

The chairwoman of the German Ethics Council, Alena Buyx, has described the corona pandemic as the “biggest social crisis since the Second World War”. She was therefore surprised “that we went back to business as usual,” said Buyx in the interview of the week Deutschlandfunks.

“If this emotional side, this fear, this deep concern is ignored,” then that is “really bad” for a society.

“Healing process” after Corona time

The political analysis could be carried out by a study commission of the Bundestag. But this is “far too little,” emphasized Buyx. This would only focus on the actual pandemic measures and their proportionality, instead of recognizing that it is an “experience of an existential crisis”. This can be observed particularly in the psychological consequences for children and young people.

“It would be important to me if we want to have such a healing process that we don’t imagine that we’re doing a study commission and then it’s somehow done, but that we have to take it broader.”

Appeal to politics

A lesson that must be learned from the pandemic period is a more conscious public approach to the psychosocial components of a society. The Chairwoman of the Ethics Council emphasized that the phenomenon of loneliness has increasingly come into public awareness since the corona pandemic. The consequences of loneliness could be serious.

“This is associated with cardiovascular diseases, i.e. really heart attacks, strokes, really the big killers with cancer, with dementia, but also with poorer mental health, and really severely,” said the expert.

In addition, lonely people are more susceptible to manipulation and conspiracy stories. “And we also know that social contacts help to bring down emotions, anger, annoyance, hatred, the whole thing that burns.” According to Buyx, politicians must also be interested in tackling the problem.