After its mixed Covid response, the EU must now focus on really delivering what its citizens want
A year ago this week, we learned with astonishment that Italy was going into a national lockdown to fight a strange new virus that had apparently come from somewhere in China. Within a fortnight, Spain, France and Britain had followed. Now here we are a year later, still in a state of emergency.
We work at home and live online. Our children have become babyzoomers. “You’re on mute!” is the most frequently heard sentence of our time. Face masks and 2-metre distancing from other human beings seem almost normal. Our languages have acquired a whole new imagery: “second wave”, “flattening the curve”, “herd immunity”, “the British variant”. Demographers will trace the long-term effects of this year of Covid for a century to come. Some say there is already a Generation C.
