Almost everywhere in Europe, the number of coronavirus infections is increasing: their number has reached or even exceeded the spring indicators. The authorities are toughening restrictive measures — for example, by mandating that masks be worn even outside enclosed spaces — or by deciding to close bars and restaurants. There has been a debate in the press about whether the main blame for the current coronavirus outbreak lies with the authorities and their decisions, or with citizens, without whose responsible behavior any government measures will simply go into the sand.
Reasonable people pay the price for the actions of fools
According to the newspaper Die Presse, the reason for the second wave of infections is very simple:
“The fact is that many, too many did not consider it necessary to adhere to the rules, but instead held magnificent weddings with songs and dances, refused to wear a mask even in situations where it would be reasonable — and generally behaved completely thoughtlessly, truly in the spirit of Trump. If it hadn’t been for the deniers who didn’t want to recognize the facts, we probably wouldn’t have had to engage in a legal-philosophical debate about the limits of the State’s infringement of fundamental rights and freedoms, nor would we have had to go through significant restrictions in everyday life — restrictions that are now being imposed again everywhere — from Paris to Palermo. And the reason for this is that the concept of personal responsibility, unfortunately, is not recognized and accepted by a very broad mass of the population. As it often happens, this is the price that reasonable people have to pay for the behavior of those who do not want to think.
Citizens don’t mind, but can they?
As Christoph Prantner, a Berlin correspondent for Neue Zurcher Zeitung, notes, it seems that the authorities have not learned any lessons from recent months:
“In the meantime… Against the backdrop of an increasing number of infections, the most chaotic rules are again being adopted: from the really necessary to contain the epidemic — to a purely reflexive imitation of activity … At the same time, politicians do not get tired of rushing around with widespread calls to the mind, intellect, and responsibility of citizens. In principle, people, for the most part, would be willing to follow all these appeals if they had the opportunity. However, today the exact following of quarantine regulations is comparable to full-time work, which, in fact, requires completed higher education in management and administration. The fact that in the second part of the Marlon ballet federation and land would not prevent the development of common requirements on the essential issues in the fight against the pandemic, … — is the least that citizens could demand from the state.
Czech Republic: no excuses would help
In contrast to the situation in the spring, now the Czech authorities have suffered a complete fiasco in the fight against coronavirus, — says Hospodarske Noviny:
“People who should not have died are dying. After the first wave, Prime Minister Andrej Babis ranted that he ‘saved thousands of people’. This time, however, it is safe to say that hundreds and thousands of people are dying because of him. If he hadn’t declared in summer that masks aren’t needed, the Czech Republic wouldn’t have turned into a coronavirus cemetery, where it’s now up to him to decide whose lives to save and whose lives not to save. Babis can look for all sorts of excuses and excuses in the sense that ‘everybody needed to be relaxed and rested’. The truth is that he made the decision.
