BERLINER MORGENPOST
Berlin (ots)
There’s a favorite brain stretch among historians: it’s to widen your perspective and avoid making unfair judgments. The exercise goes like this: imagine what people knew, believed and expected BEFORE an event, at the beginning of a crisis. Latin: ex ante. This view differs fundamentally from the ex post view, from looking back at an event. You can also put it simply: afterwards you are always smarter. This also applies to the pandemic.
In spring 2020, exactly three years ago, we knew practically nothing about the novel corona virus – but as a country we had to act. Today we are, to put it bluntly, a nation of 80 million virologists. The most absurd moment from today’s perspective: the blatant misjudgment of the impending danger. In early 2020, the Federal Ministry of Health sent a remarkable email to many German editors, warning against overestimating the new virus that was currently spreading in China. Tenor: Don’t exaggerate, folks. No reason for alarm mood. A few weeks later, Germany experienced its first tough lockdown.
Our collective washing compulsion back then also sounds absurd today: In the beginning we constantly soaped our hands, disinfected doorknobs and learned to cough into the crook of our arm. What we didn’t know: that Corona is transmitted through the air we breathe. aerosols? Never heard. Millions of Germans first had to google what that is. Today we know that you can get infected and get sick even after four vaccinations. But we also know that vaccination has protected millions of people from a severe course. There were dramatic phases in the nursing homes and clinics, many children and young people are still suffering from the consequences of the tough protective measures. But there was no second Bergamo.
The equipment in the public health system also proved to be quite unsuitable: too little protective clothing and masks, too few intensive care beds and nursing staff, too few employees in the health authorities, too little digital speed in data transmission. While Israel, with its modern, digital health system, was rapidly supplying the world with valuable studies on the use and effect of the new vaccines, the German government, even after six months of vaccination campaigns, did not know how many people had actually had their turn.
After all, it was a company in Germany that developed the world’s most important vaccine. Against this background, it is particularly bitter that Biontech is now increasingly relocating its research abroad because data protection in Germany is too orthodox.
The very last Corona rules end this Friday. The mask requirement for visitors in medical practices and clinics falls. Corona is not over, but neither is it currently a collective threat. The bad news: after the pandemic is before the pandemic. Experts assume that climate change and globalization could usher in an era of frequent pandemics. The good news is: We now know how the pandemic works and what a country needs to get through it well. The pandemic is a turning point for Germany, a turning point. As with the Bundeswehr, however, it is not yet clear whether the change of course will ultimately succeed in time before the next virus.
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