Boris Johnson celebrates himself and his government for stable low corona case numbers in Great Britain. He is reluctant to mention the more than 125,000 fatalities.
London – Boris Johnson is a politician who likes to portray himself as a doer and go-getter. For a short time, its reputation seemed to suffer when Great Britain initially resorted to relatively loose measures in the early days of the corona pandemic and had to report rapidly increasing numbers of cases and deaths instead of striving for herd immunity. Suddenly the maker looked like someone driven by the corona virus who no longer seemed to have his country under control.
At the latest with his own serious corona illness, a rethinking apparently began in Downing Street, the historic official residence of the British Prime Ministers: inside. In order not to burden the domestic economy with the consequences of the corona pandemic in addition to leaving the EU and also to take the pressure off the health system, which is about to collapse, the former London mayor ordered his nation a tough lockdown.
Corona: Boris Johnson ordered Great Britain a hard lockdown after initial hesitation
To this day, and for months now, British citizens (the regional governments of Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland are following a similarly tough course) have not been allowed to travel abroad privately. Over a period of several months, the Brit: inside were not allowed to meet a single person outside their own household and even for leaving their own neighborhood they had to provide a “valid” reason. A hard lockdown, like the one that Germany, at the beginning of the corona pandemic, acted as a role model for many European nations, has not yet experienced.
Boris Johnson has stabilized the corona situation in Great Britain. His means: vaccination and hard lockdowns.
© Tayfun Salci via www.imago-images.de
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And it may seem surprising at first glance that far stricter rules still apply in Great Britain than in Germany – although the kingdom now seems to have the corona pandemic much better under control. If the incidence value in the Federal Republic is currently over 100 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants, Great Britain currently only has an incidence of 39 new corona cases in the same period.
Britain under Boris Johnson is far ahead of the EU in the race for vaccines against corona
In order to understand how the British government managed to steadily reduce the previously alarmingly high numbers in its own country and stabilize it at a comparatively low level, one must look at the way the United Kingdom has got out of its worst worries: vaccination. The Robert Koch Institute reports for Germany with its around 83 million inhabitants: so far just over 16 million vaccination doses and a vaccination rate of fully vaccinated people of 5.7 percent. Great Britain, on the other hand, can boast that with 31 million people, around half of its 66 million inhabitants have already provided at least a first dose of vaccination. In Germany, this figure is just 13.8 percent.
How did it come about that Great Britain has so clearly left Germany behind when it comes to vaccinating and combating a high incidence? The explanations for this are complex. First of all, there is the willingness of the British people to accept the harsh measures of their government. Not least with a view to the devastating number of cases at the beginning of the pandemic and the many deaths, the Brit: inside got involved in the Corona measures of their government, large-scale demonstrations by vaccination opponents and corona deniers: inside as in Germany, for example, only a few hundred angry citizens: inside gathered every now and then. The Brit: inside also exhibited a corona discipline, which many Germans, who moaned under the comparatively loose measures in this country, would probably have perceived as an imposition.
Under Boris Johnson, Great Britain purchases vaccines from the EU, while exports are stagnating
But the real key lies in the UK vaccination campaign. In contrast to the EU, the British succeeded in stocking up enough vaccine doses early on – a considerable part of them from the EU. The EU Commission counted more than 21 million vaccine doses that had been exported from mainland Europe to the British island since the beginning of December. In return, “almost nothing” had come the other way. The British-Swedish manufacturer Astrazeneca, for example, had reduced its initial commitment of 300 million vaccine doses to just 100 million in the first half of 2021, while the British Minister of Health boasted that its own contract with the company “trumped” that of the EU.
| Great Britain | Germany | |
| Residents: inside | 66.65 million | 83.02 million |
| Corona cases | 4.37 million | 2.94 million |
| Corona deaths | 127.000 | 77.755 |
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Accordingly, the EU Commission reacted undiplomatically, instructing Astrazeneca to suspend exports from the territory of the international community to Great Britain until the EU treaties were fulfilled, and introduced stricter export controls at the end of March. The United Kingdom, for its part, reacted sensitively to the export ban, which threatened to slow down the pace of its own ambitious vaccination campaign – especially since India had also frozen exports to Great Britain. Now both parties have come to the negotiating table to negotiate a long-term cooperation. These negotiations have not yet been concluded.
Corona: The EU and Great Britain get tangled up in the vaccine dispute, Boris Johnson benefits
And it could well stay that way for a while, too deep are the wounds that had caused mutual accusations such as nationalism, breach of contract and unilateral taking advantage. In addition, there is the still smoldering dispute over the Northern Ireland question, of all things the EU Commission, which had always advocated open borders on the divided Irish island, is said to have considered monitoring vaccine exports on the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland took her own longstanding negotiating credo ad absurdum. The European Parliament, however, unaffected by this, continues to insist on a clarification of the Northern Ireland question and combines its approval of the trade pact with a pacification of the conflict.
In the end, both sides could end up losing out. The EU is dependent on raw material deliveries from Great Britain, the UK on the EU lifting the export ban. If no agreement can be reached in a timely manner, things could get tight for everyone. Boris Johnson plays that into the cards. His approval ratings rise in inverse proportion to the falling number of corona cases, his fatal quarrel seems almost forgotten in the first months of the corona pandemic, which led to the fact that, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University, more than 125,000 Britons had to die of corona.
Boris Johnson is back in his role as a Brexit hardliner after surviving the Corona crisis
Now that he is gradually easing the tough Corona measures in Great Britain and opening the first pubs again, he is back in his role as the alleged defender of the values of the Empire against the EU, which is allegedly marked by bureaucracy and incompetence. An image that is particularly popular with hardliners and Brexit fans. In other words, with those who had just flushed Johnson into the office of prime minister. (Mirko Schmid)
Rubriklistenbild: © Tayfun Salci via www.imago-images.de
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