Germans being German about coronavirus
Other countries look to Berlin to see how it got
things so right.
By MATTHEW KARNITSCHNIG 4/29/20, 4:31 AM CET
BERLIN — No one’s ever accused Germans of modesty.
Whether the subject is das Auto, beer or nude
sunbathing, Germans take deep pride in knowing they’ve got an edge on the rest of
us.
As the world has struggled to cope with the pandemic,
Germany is basking in an international glow for being the only major Western
democracy to more or less get things right.
Though it has a large number of infections (about
160,000), the country’s death rate is nearly 60 percent lower than in the U.S.
and 85 percent lower than in Spain. At a time when medical personnel in New
York have resorted to wearing ski goggles and trash bags for protection while
treating COVID-19 patients, German hospitals have been a comparatively
well-equipped sea of calm (though not without certain protests). In recent
days, the country has brought the pace of new infections down enough to slowly
lift restrictions. It’s even planning to open up intensive care capacity to
non-corona patients.
With the situation in both the U.S. and Britain
getting more grotesque by the day, Merkel has to do little more than show up in
order to shine.
International media have been quick to search for the
secret to Germany’s corona success, especially outlets in the hard-hit U.S. and
U.K. Was it the quality of German health care, the ubiquity of testing (which
makes it easier to quickly isolate cases and trace infections), the fact that
the infected in Germany were mostly young people? Or all of the above?
The New York Times offered its own novel theory: “The
chancellor’s mixture of calm reassurance and clear-eyed realism.” The Atlantic,
a U.S.-based political magazine, doubled-down on the theme: “The chancellor’s
rigor in collating information, her honesty in stating what is not yet known,
and her composure are paying off.”
If Angela Merkel (aka the “leader of the free world”
in some circles) was the darling of the West’s left-leaning elites before
corona, she may well end up enjoying Gandhi-like status by the time the
droplets settle.
Her modest appearance, monotone speech and academic
air have made her the perfect foil to the daily buffoonery emanating from the
White House and No. 10 Downing Street.
With the situation in both the U.S. and Britain
getting more grotesque by the day, Merkel has to do little more than show up in
order to shine.
Back when Boris Johnson was shaking every hand in
sight while preaching “herd immunity,” and Donald Trump declared coronavirus a
“hoax” perpetuated by his political enemies, Merkel, the sober scientist, was
urging caution and preparing for the worst.
At least that’s how the legend goes.
In truth, Merkel was caught just as off-guard as most
world leaders. Her wake-up call came on March 8, when the Italian government
was forced to put the wealthy northern part of the country under quarantine.
Prior to that, Merkel had said almost nothing about the outbreak.
To her credit, Merkel thrives in times of crisis,
especially when it comes to negotiating a consensus, whether between EU member
countries or Germany’s often-fractious regions.
Nonetheless, there’s a more prosaic explanation for
Germany’s low death rate and mild outbreak that has nothing to do with testing
capacity, a surplus of intensive care beds or astute leadership — dumb luck.
By the time the pandemic slammed northern Italy with
full force, Germany had yet to impose any restrictions on the public, in
contrast to countries such as Austria and Spain.
At that point, Germany had only a fraction of the
cases that Italy did, however. That gave Berlin a head start of at least two
weeks to prepare for (and prevent) the worst.
And that’s exactly what it did.
With graphic pictures of the crisis in Italy streaming
into German homes every day, it wasn’t difficult to convince people of the
gravity of the situation. In the weeks that followed, the public accepted both
the unprecedented restrictions on their freedom as well as the government’s
lavish emergency spending proposals without protest.
So, while the quality health care system and German
efficiency may have played a role, the mere fact that Germany had ample warning
— and heeded it — made all the difference.
While Germans might have a reputation abroad for
arrogance, at home they’re prone to self-doubt.
That may be why most Germans aren’t bragging.
“The fact that Germany is doing better than other
countries so far makes one humble, not overconfident,” Jens Spahn, the German
health minister, cautioned in an interview with CNBC this month.
Much of the skepticism over Germany’s supposed
exceptionalism has come from within the country itself.
While Germans might have a reputation abroad for
arrogance, at home they’re prone to self-doubt. What if they’re relaxing the
restrictions too early, many wonder. Or not early enough, others ask, with an
eye toward the economic impact.
About the only thing most Germans seem to agree on, at
least in private, is that no matter how bad things get, they’ll still be better
off than the rest of us.
The Secret to Germany’s COVID-19 Success: Angela
Merkel Is a Scientist
The chancellor’s rigor in collating information, her
honesty in stating what is not yet known, and her composure are paying off.
SASKIA
MILLER
APRIL 20,
2020
MICHAEL KAPPELER / DPA / ALAMY
Updated at
11:45 a.m. E.T.
BERLIN—Today,
we face the global outbreak of a disease that has the potential to catalyze
what the historian Eva Schlotheuber terms a “pandemic of the mind.” As
misinformation proliferates and lines between fact and fiction are routinely
and nonchalantly crossed, world leaders must, now more than ever, illuminate a
thoughtful path forward, one reliant on science and evidence-based reasoning.
Indeed, many have. One leader goes further still. Trusted by her people to
navigate this outbreak’s murky waters, without inciting or succumbing to a
pandemic of the mind, one politician is less a commander in chief and more a
scientist in chief: Angela Merkel.
For weeks
now, Germany’s leader has deployed her characteristic rationality, coupled with
an uncharacteristic sentimentality, to guide the country through what has thus
far been a relatively successful battle against COVID-19. The pandemic is
proving to be the crowning challenge for a politician whose leadership style
has consistently been described as analytical, unemotional, and cautious. In
her quest for social and economic stability during this outbreak, Merkel enjoys
several advantages: a well-respected, coordinated system of scientific and
medical expertise distributed across Germany; the hard-earned trust of the
public; and the undeniable fact that steady and sensible leadership is suddenly
back in style. With 30 years of political experience, and facing an enormous
challenge that begs calm, reasoned thinking, Merkel is at peak performance
modeling the humble credibility of a scientist at work. And it seems to be
paying off, both politically and scientifically.
Born in
West Germany in 1954, Merkel was raised in a small East German town to the
north of Berlin. Her father was a Lutheran pastor and a target of surveillance
by East Germany’s security service, the Stasi. A brilliant student, Merkel
learned early on “not to put herself in the center of things” lest she expose
herself or her family to undue scrutiny, according to Stefan Kornelius, her
official biographer and the foreign editor of the Süddeutsche Zeitung
newspaper. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Merkel, who had by then earned a
doctorate in quantum chemistry, was working as a research scientist. Soon
after, she left her job to join a new political group that had formed in her
neighborhood, thus quietly launching her political career. She rose in German
politics and, through sheer smarts and a series of well-timed tactical
maneuvers, ascended in 2005 to the chancellery, the head of Germany’s federal
government. Her trajectory was dramatic and uncommon—for a woman, for an East
German, and for a trained scientist with no background in law or civil service.
Why did
Merkel leave what appeared to be a promising career for the uncertainty of
politics? In a New Yorker profile of her, George Packer called the decision
“the central mystery of an opaque life.” Kornelius attributes the drastic
change to a realization that, as a scientist from poorer and under-resourced
East Germany, she would be “outpaced” by her western peers.
Merkel has
never spoken publicly about why she left science, but perhaps that is because
it never really left her. Scientific thinking—her deliberate probing of each
new bit of information, her cautious consultation with experts—remains integral
to Merkel’s daily decision-making process and her political persona. She is
undoubtedly aware that her measured, modest handling of Germany’s affairs is at
least partially why she has, for almost 15 years now, enjoyed the support of a
country whose historical reverence for scientific achievement and great minds
(think Kant, Einstein, innumerable others) is forever balanced by an acute
wariness of charismatic leaders with big ideas (think Hitler).
Prior to
the pandemic, Merkel’s political star had been waning. She had become known,
according to Kornelius, as the chancellor “who avoided things, much less as the
one who built things.” Yes, she had prevented Europe from falling apart during
the financial crisis and led the continent as it grappled with the subsequent
migration crisis. But of late, she had been left politically sidelined by the
domestic rise of populism, the far right, the far left, and by autocratic
leaders around the world.
Then came
the coronavirus. Germany’s first case was confirmed on January 28, but the threat
didn’t truly transform everyday life here until the middle of March.
Government-mandated restrictions in Berlin were incremental but more and more
disruptive. Few were bothered by the cancellation of large gatherings such as
industry conferences, but when the city’s creative centers—its theaters,
operas, and concert halls—closed on March 10, something essential went missing.
A few days later, Berlin’s notorious and celebrated nightlife scene went dark
too. Pedestrians dispersed, spooked restaurant owners closed up shop or erected
plexiglass barriers. The very fabric of the capital’s social and cultural life
was fraying. Residents of this once-divided city were again reminded just how
quickly freedom can be lost.
Merkel—for
whom, as a former East German, liberty and freedom are known to be
paramount—understood all too personally what the lockdown meant for her fellow
citizens. On March 18, after the country had closed its schools, its economy,
its way of life, she gave a rare televised speech that solidified her
leadership.
Facing the
camera from behind a desk, with both the German and European Union flags to her
side, she began on an emotional note, by conceding that “our idea of normality,
of public life, social togetherness—all of this is being put to the test as
never before.” She emphasized the importance of democracy and of making
transparent political decisions and she insisted that any information she
shared about the pandemic was based on thorough research. Then, in an
astonishing statement for a German leader, one she “must have considered
endlessly," Kornelius told me, she made reference to her country’s darkest
hour. “Since the Second World War,” Merkel said, “there has not been a
challenge for our country in which action in a spirit of solidarity on our part
was so important.”
What stood
out from the address was not so much Merkel’s medical advice, but her unusually
direct appeal to the notion of social togetherness and to her own limitations
as an individual and as a leader (“I firmly believe that we will pass this test
if all citizens genuinely see this as their task”). Her rational assurances and
her emotional appeal were crucial at a time of rising panic. While the mood
isn’t quite so dark here anymore—thanks to a variety of factors, Germany
appears to have dealt with the outbreak better than many other
countries—Germans largely continue to heed the chancellor’s detailed
directives. The number of people infected by the coronavirus has increased, as
it has throughout the world. But unlike in Italy, where more than 22,000 have
lost their life to COVID-19, or in the United States, where the death toll has
surpassed that figure and continues to rise rapidly, total deaths in Germany
have been inching up from 4,000. To put this in perspective, more than twice as
many New Yorkers have lost their life to the coronavirus as have individuals in
all of Germany to date.
While
country-level comparative data may be somewhat unreliable, and the numbers can
certainly take a turn for the worse in Germany as anywhere else, experts cite a
number of possible factors for the country’s relatively low number of deaths:
The average age of coronavirus patients has been lower here than elsewhere,
which limits the risk; the number of people tested for the virus is higher than
in other countries, and cases are for the most part carefully tracked; and the
public health-care system has been efficient enough to ramp up the number of
available intensive-care units to meet potential demand.
Given her
longevity, any resulting successes are at least in some degree attributable to
Merkel’s leadership. The chancellor has a way of bringing “divergent interests
together in compromise,” Kornelius said. Her ability to admit what she doesn’t
know, and delegate decisions, has been a particularly good fit for post-war
Germany’s federalized political structure.
Merkel has
relied on experts from well-funded scientific-research organizations, including
public-health agencies such as the Robert Koch Institute and the country’s
network of public universities. The Berlin Institute of Health, a
biomedical-research institution, has, like other organizations, recently
pivoted its efforts in order to study the coronavirus. Its chairman, Axel
Radlach Pries, told me that Germany’s research institutions are currently
working closely together to “establish nationwide systems” of research. The
federal government, with Merkel at the helm, plays a convening role, recently
gathering all of the country’s university medical departments into a single
coronavirus task force.
When I
spoke with him, Pries stressed the significance of receiving honest
communication from the highest levels of leadership during the outbreak. Merkel
has relied heavily, and very publicly, on the expertise of a handful of
experts, including the now famous Christian Drosten, the head of virology at
the Charité hospital in Berlin. From the perspective of the public, Pries said,
the chancellor and the virologist “are very trustworthy.” People know “that what
they get from both Drosten and Angela Merkel are real and very well-considered
facts” and that the two also “share information about what they don’t know.”
Because they are “honest with respect to their information,” he said, that
information is seen as credible. This honesty, at a time of widespread
disinformation, Pries told me, was playing a big role in persuading Germans to
largely continue to follow the rules and maintain, even now, “a very calm
situation in Germany.”
The virus
is still far from defeated, and no one knows what challenges lie ahead for
Germany, or the rest of the world. But judging by Merkel’s approach—her rigor
in collating information, her honesty in stating what is not yet known, and her
composure—she may someday be remembered not as Germany’s greatest scientist,
but as its scientist in chief: the political leader who executed, celebrated,
and personified evidence-based thinking when it mattered most.
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