Merkel a model for handling pandemic
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s approval ratings have shot up during the coronavirus crisis. A recent poll finds that 72 percent of Germans approve of her handling of the situation. Only three out of 10 respondents were critical of the extremely strict safety measures that her governing coalition has adopted.
By contrast, U.S. President Donald Trump has seen his approval ratings plummet with the spread of the coronavirus. A recent Emerson College poll found approval of his handling of the crisis has dropped 10 points from 49 percent to 39 percent. His credibility rating is even lower. The latest Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research polling finds only 23 percent of Americans have confidence in what Trump says about the virus.
America’s COVID-19 death toll on May 10 was approaching 80,000, and continues on an upward path, as does the number of new cases diagnosed. This is in contrast to Germany, where the number of new cases and deaths is on a downward path.
As of May 10, there have been nearly 1.4 million diagnosed coronavirus cases in the United States. Germany has had 172,000 cases, with 7,569 deaths. A per capita comparison (number of cases per 100,000 population) shows the United States at 400 has nearly double the cases in Germany at 202.07 and more than double the deaths at 24.08, compared with 9.10 in Germany.
Germany, with an aggressive testing and tracking system, has one of Western Europe’s lowest death rates. Its public health system provides for sufficient numbers of ventilators and personal protective equipment.
The strict safety measures have worked. The country is reopening the economy and relaxing the strict measures adopted two months ago.
On March 18, Merkel delivered one of her rare speeches to the nation. She asked Germans to show solidarity in defeating COVID-19. It was a typically brief and unemotional talk, delivered in a soft monotone. Merkel, chancellor for the past 15 years, told her fellow Germans to take care of themselves and their loved ones.
Merkel’s credibility has been key in Germany’s success in containing the virus.
“In crises like this one, you have to trust your government,” Malte Lehming said during a telephone interview.
Lehming is a respected opinion writer for Der Tagesspiegal, a centrist Berlin daily. “Germans trust her (Merkel) because she tells us what she knows and what she doesn’t.”
Lehming noted that Merkel’s education as a scientist enhances her credibility. She has a doctorate in chemistry.
Trump, by contrast, lacks credibility. He spins fictional narratives and resists scientific advice. Rather than confronting the reality of the virus, his strategy is one of denial. Early on, he claimed cases would soon drop from 15 to zero.
Contrary to his administration’s guidelines, he refuses to wear a mask. He’s promoted treatments for which there is no scientific basis. His suggestion that disinfectant and ultraviolet light might kill the virus inside the human body is ludicrous.
Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, called the administration’s virus efforts a “spectacular success,” while the numbers of cases and deaths were soaring.
Alexander Görlach, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York, a German scholar who was a visiting fellow at Harvard University from 2014 until 2017, said in a telephone interview that the Trump policies have made America the target of international scorn and ridicule.
“This is a Third World country,” Görlach said, “Not an educated, enlightened democracy.”
According to Görlach, Merkel believes democratic policy should be based on the advice of experts, while balancing the opinions of elected officials. He said that she often achieves that tricky balance and faces crises with composure and confidence.
Merkel consults regularly with a multi-disciplinary panel of 26 academics from Germany’s National Academy of Sciences. One observer has said she may be remembered as the political leader who personified evidence-based thinking when it mattered most.
Görlach told a joke that captures the contrast between Merkel and Trump.
TRUMP: We will be the first to send a spaceship to the sun.
MERKEL: That’s impossible because the sun will burn the spacecraft.
TRUMP: That’s no problem because we’re going there at night.
Merkel is a proponent of the multi-nationalism that Trump abhors, as evidenced by his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement and the Paris climate accord.
Sadly, when faced with a pandemic that affects every country on this planet, rather than seizing the opportunity to unite the world, Trump promotes division, and attacks the World Health Organization.
At a recent meeting on COVID-19 vaccine research, hosted by the European Union, the United States was absent.
Once leader of the Free World, the United States has become an untrustworthy actor, its president the object of ridicule.
Donald Snyder, a Greenwich resident, is a former foreign correspondent and a retired producer for NBC News.