Angela Merkel Tried to Govern Like an AI but Couldn’t
Germany’s chancellor has followed the science on dealing with Covid, until that took her to a place a politician couldn’t go.
Politics 1, science 0.
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been known to apologize publicly from time to time, both for what she considers her own mistakes and for government decisions that she feels are justified but that can make voters unhappy. Wednesday’s Merkel apology was special, though, because it came with an abrupt reversal of a decision Merkel had engineered in one of her trademark all-nighters as recently as the wee hours of Tuesday.
In that marathon video session, the outgoing chancellor pressured the leaders of the German states to agree to the strictest lockdown for next week’s Easter holidays that Germany has had since the Covid-19 pandemic began. Not just the “non-essential” stores would be closed from Thursday through the following Monday, but also supermarkets and other shops selling food, which have remained open throughout the pandemic’s deadliest periods. Merkel brought all her political weight and negotiating skill to bear, effectively threatening the state heads with an even tougher alternative — a curfew, another draconian measure Germany has never tried before.