"Not sufficient": Dissatisfaction with corona policy is growing rapidly

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Germany in the Corona autumn: More and more Germans consider crisis management to be insufficient

Photo: Robert Michael / dpa

The seven-day incidence of new corona infections in Germany has reached a new high.

With 201.1 infected per 100,000 inhabitants, more people in Germany have contracted the coronavirus than ever since the beginning of the pandemic.

Political determination is needed right now to break the fourth wave and prevent the worst for winter. But this determination is lacking: The current government around Chancellor Angela Merkel is holding back, leading Union politicians hold Merkel's designated successor Olaf Scholz (SPD) responsible. The future traffic light coalitionists point to the responsibility of the CDU-led Chancellery, but are also working on a Corona bill. This should be the basis for new anti-corona measures when the epidemic emergency expires at the end of November.

The crisis management vacuum is not well received by the population, as a survey by the opinion research institute Civey for SPIEGEL shows.

Accordingly, the proportion of people who rate the corona policy of the federal and state governments as inadequate has risen rapidly since mid-October.

Around 42 percent of Germans currently consider the measures to combat pandemic to be inadequate.

Only 27 percent feel the current corona policy is excessive.

Almost a third consider the current measures to be appropriate.

In mid-October, just over 20 percent of Germans were of the opinion that the measures taken in the fight against the virus were insufficient.

Most recently, there was such a sharp rise in dissatisfaction in the middle of the third wave - at the beginning of the then sluggish vaccination campaign in spring 2021.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Civey has asked SPIEGEL how Germans rate the appropriateness of the corona policy.

The current, representative values ​​come from surveys in the period from November 1st to 8th, a little more than 10,000 people were interviewed.

Viewed over the entire period of the pandemic, the impression of inadequate measures correlated with the increasing incidence figures.

While many people thought the restrictions exaggerated over the relatively mild summer of 2020, the mood shifted at the latest with the start of the second wave in autumn.

The Germans then gave the politicians the worst grades in the third wave in spring 2021. The vaccination campaign was still slow, but the federal and state governments were already discussing easing the number of infections.

At the beginning of April, 65 percent of those questioned judged the political measures to be inadequate.

It was the week after Easter - when Chancellor Angela Merkel had to withdraw her proposed "Easter rest" after a disastrous round of prime ministers and CDU leader Armin Laschet asked for time to use the holidays to "reflect".

The nationwide seven-day incidence at that time was 123.

The current handling of the fourth wave is assessed differently depending on age.

Among the younger people up to 39 years of age, those who consider the measures to be excessive or insufficient are balanced.

Only in the older age groups does the ratio change.

Among people between 50 and 65 years of age, only 28 percent consider the corona policy to be exaggerated, while it is only 15 percent for everyone over 65.

There are also, in some cases, major differences when it comes to party preferences.

A clear majority of AfD supporters consider the measures to be exaggerated, and the majority of the supporters of the FDP also want a more cautious corona policy.

On the other hand, clear criticism comes from the left: More than half of the supporters of the SPD, the Greens and the Left feel that the corona policy is inadequate.

40 percent of the CDU and CSU sympathizers also see it that way.

You can find out more about the Civey method here.