Austria's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz presented his exit strategy after the corona lockdown. He also puts the Bavarian Prime Minister under pressure. A comment by Merkur editor-in-chief Georg Anastasiadis.
Is that good or not so good news for the quarantined Germans? Austria, whose young chancellor has been setting the pace for the other Europeans for a number of tough measures for weeks, is celebrating encouraging success in the fight against the Corona epidemic - but schools and restaurants in our neighboring country should still remain closed until mid-May. The fight against the virus can therefore be won. But the way back to normal is long and arduous.
After all: Smaller shops as well as DIY and garden centers will soon be able to open again, shopping centers and hairdressers are to follow on May 1st. In Bavaria, which is closely based on the Austrian model, it could happen with a little delay; Prime Minister Söder will have to explain this soon. It is important to overcome the standstill and to give people a perspective. For hundreds of thousands, it's about existence. As in Hungary, politicians must not succumb to the frenzy of crackdown; neither should they let themselves be infected by the panic mood that the head of the Robert Koch Institute, for example, is spreading in Germany with his warning of “Italian conditions”. Every further day of the economic and democratic state of emergency must be well founded, and every measure must be based on the proportionality scale. The policy of lockdown with the abolition of central civil rights (such as freedom of movement, the right to practice freely, freedom of trade, freedom of assembly and demonstration) is similar to the use of the atomic bomb in a democratic society. As soon as the greatest danger has passed, it must be replaced immediately by a set of measures adapted to the situation, such as regionally limited quarantines or fever monitoring stations at airports or shopping centers such as in Asia.
Incidentally, this also includes the (temporary) use of systems for locating the cell phone of infected people - if that is the condition for the fact that more important freedoms can be reinstated for everyone else.
