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Germany still believes it can overcome the pandemic better than others. But that’s only true compared to countries that fail in the fight against Corona. Compared with the most successful countries, the results are sobering.
The finance minister wanted to appear confident. After all, Peter Altmaier (CDU) had relatively good news to announce when he presented the fall screening to the federal government on Friday.
In the third quarter, the German economy grew surprisingly by more than eight percent compared to the previous quarter. Against this backdrop, the federal government expects gross domestic product to decline by just 5.5 percent in 2020. It had previously assumed that economic output would decline further.
“So far, Germany has weathered the crisis better than many other countries,” said the economy minister, “because we acted decisively together during the first wave of the pandemic.”
It is a phrase full of pride and complacency. One that is not bad when compared to the losers of the pandemic: Western nations that paint a poor picture in the crisis, such as the United States, France and Britain.
But it is a phrase whose arrogance borders on ridiculous when you compare yourself to the winners of the pandemic, those nations that really did fight the pandemic successfully, especially countries in East and Southeast Asia.
The only positive from the German point of view: a blockade works
If you look at the statistics on the website “Our World In Data”, a project of the non-profit organization “Global Change Data Lab”, it immediately catches your eye. There you can see the daily number of new confirmed infections per million people. If you compare Germany to China, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, you will see that Germany has had a worse figure since mid-March, that is, since the first wave, and steadily.
(Quelle: Our world in data)
If you look at the numbers, the huge gap is immediately noticeable: since the outbreak of the second wave at the end of September, the numbers in Germany have risen rapidly. More recently, the value per million inhabitants was more than 150. In South Korea, however, it was slightly more than two at the end of October, and in China, Taiwan and Vietnam even less than one. Several Asian countries where the coronavirus first broke out in the spring have de facto defeated it.
The only positive from the German point of view: a blockade works. In early April, the German value began to fall, in June even below four. But since then it has increased again.
It is as if there are several worlds on planet Earth. Because many countries in Africa have also controlled the pandemic, such as Kenya, Ghana and Rwanda, for example. However, they are rarely mentioned as role models for other countries.
What is surprising about Germany is that it is not only Economic Affairs Minister Altmaier who believes that the country will be able to manage the pandemic well. The Federal Republic of Germany also receives good marks internationally for its fight against the pandemic.
In April, an article in the “Wall Street Journal” praised the benefits of fighting German pandemics compared to the United States, France, Italy and Spain, not to mention that the death rate per million people in Germany was more than 100 times greater than in Taiwan and more than ten times greater than in South Korea.
And when British Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed in June that no country in the world had developed a functional contact tracing app, Labor politician Keir Starmer replied that Germany had such an app, referring to twelve million people. downloads at that time. What it didn’t say: The number of downloads says little or nothing about the app’s effectiveness.
“The success of these countries should be our inspiration”
One person studying the benefits of fighting Asian pandemics is Jeffrey Sachs, an economist who teaches at Columbia University in New York. In addition, Sachs is a special advisor to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. The American thinks in global contexts by profession. In June, he wrote a commentary for CNN titled “What Asian Nations Know About Fighting Covid-19.” He answered questions by email.
Neither the US nor Europe have learned from the strengths of fighting the Asian pandemic, Sachs says, that is, from extensive testing, constant digital contact tracking, and strict quarantine. There are also differences of mentality. In Asian societies, behaviors containing the pandemic, such as wearing masks, keeping a distance, and not attending important events, would be considered acceptable. In the United States and Europe, however, Sachs says, it is difficult to do so.
In March, Ian Johnson, a longtime Pulitzer Prize winner and China correspondent, wrote an article in the “New York Times” wondering why the West had turned away from China in the two months that the epidemic lasted. . By spreading the West, I learned nothing from the experiences there. His answer: The West perceives China as so “different” that it does not see what can be learned from the country. Observers criticize that a similar pattern of perception applies to all of Asia.
Sachs doesn’t go that far in her criticism. He blames the untenable nature of supporters of the President of the United States for tunnel vision. “America just doesn’t learn from others,” he writes, “or at least Trump’s part of America doesn’t learn from others.” In this week’s presidential election, Sachs is counting on Democrat Joe Biden. “It will make a big difference if Biden is elected,” he writes.
