There have been blunders, and vaccine rollout has been slow, but most Germans seem happy with Angela Merkel’s response
Germany, it seems, barely noticed when it hit 50,000 deaths from Covid-19. To be fair, there has been a lot of news lately – had we arrived at this grim milestone earlier, when it didn’t have to compete with Donald Trump’s ignominious exit from the White House, the beginning of Joe Biden’s presidency, and the election of Armin Laschet to the leadership of the Christian Democratic Union, there surely would have been an avalanche of opinion pieces and memorials.
Instead, it was buried. And while leaders in the UK have been scrambling and bickering, lest Britain become “a failed state”, as Gordon Brown has warned, German politicians seem more tired than anything else. The election of Laschet seems to indicate that the CDU leadership intends to try to carry Merkel’s legacy – and, with a 72% approval rating for the chancellor, the relative competence with which Germany has handled the pandemic seems to be recognised by the public.
