Angela Merkel draws on science background in Covid-19 explainer
In her 14 years as Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel’s straight delivery and aversion to rhetorical grandeur has been a frequent bugbear for journalists and party colleagues longing for a more passionate line of communication between the head of government and the public.
Yet in the middle of the coronavirus crisis, even her critics have come to appreciate a politician who is on safer ground explaining the importance of decimal places than projecting great visions of the future.
Merkel’s explanation of the scientific basis behind her government’s lockdown exit strategy, a clip of which has been shared thousands of times on social media, had all the calm confidence expected of a former research scientist with a doctorate in quantum chemistry who once co-authored a paper on the “influence of spatial correlations on the rate of chemical reactions”.
Explaining why her optimism about a flattening of the infection rate needed to be circumspect and an exit out of the lockdown required caution, the 65year-old rattled through a model calculation.
Figures show the virus in Germany to have a reproduction number of one (R1), meaning on average one person goes on to infect one other person.
Without measures to slow down the spread of the virus, such as physical distancing, scientists believe Covid-19 to have a reproduction number of two to three.
If the reproduction number of one were to go up to 1.1, Merkel explained, the German health system could be overwhelmed by October. If it were to go up to 1.2, hospitals could reach a crisis point in July, and if it went up to 1.3 the crisis point would come in June.
Merkel’s calculation, which came at the end of Wednesday night’s press conference, has received more attention abroad than in Germany, where the public is accustomed to the strengths and weaknesses that come with her scientific training.
Lothar de Maiziére, the last East German premier who recommended Merkel for her first role in politics, has said her scientific background made her an outsider in a political arena dominated by men with law degrees, but also enabled her rise.
“She knows that for every effect there has to be a cause and maybe also ideal conditions,” he told the Merkel biographer Evelyn Roll. “She knows the laws of formal logic and is therefore capable of building logical chains with speed and determination.”
Asked why she decided to study physics as a young woman, Merkel has said it helped her to keep an independent mind in an overtly ideological system: “Basic mathematical calculations and the laws of nature cannot be suspended, even in the GDR [East Germany]. Two and two makes four, even under [the former East German leader Erich] Honecker.”
Was there anything politicians could learn from scientists, one German journalist once asked her. “Gravity,” Merkel responded. “Without mass, no depth.”