The Chamber’s scientific service has presented its report on the effectiveness and proportionality of Luxembourg’s corona measures. A long overdue review of the corona period and its policies. But anyone who is now looking for new arguments for discussions about the sense and nonsense of compulsory mask wearing, contact reduction and vaccination campaigns is missing the real crux of the matter. The most bitter conclusion from the review of these years is another: Luxembourg has become a little more unfair, society a little more unequal.
During the coronavirus pandemic, social and gender inequalities in Luxembourg have increased, the researchers write. Mental well-being has worsened, there is more depression, more anxiety disorders, more loneliness and more stress. All of this is directly related to the pandemic or the after-effects and side effects of the measures ordered by political decision-makers to contain the virus. And yet this development is much more than a consequence of the pandemic.
The Covid-19 pandemic has been a multiplier. Like a large magnifying glass focusing the sun’s rays, it has intensified the injustices and social problems that have long prevailed in our society. It is therefore not surprising which groups have suffered the most during the pandemic years, according to the Chamber report. The victims of the Corona crisis in Luxembourg are also the victims of all other crises, be it housing shortages or price inflation: households with children, single parents, young people and residents of Portuguese nationality.
With regard to the weakest members of society, the lesson from the pandemic must therefore be that there is no lesson to be learned from the pandemic. That something is fundamentally wrong here. The foundation of social peace was already unstable before the pandemic, and the Corona years have only made it a little shakier.
There were moments in the exceptional situation of the first lockdown when many people became aware of this for the first time. The world was turned upside down: governments that had just recently rigorously cut public spending were suddenly distributing billions in aid money with ease. For a moment, it seemed as if fundamental change was possible, towards a fairer society. It was so obvious who was doing the work that was essential to the system: the cashier at the supermarket checkout was thanked for her work, the nursing staff in the hospitals were applauded. The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek even dreamed of a new form of communism as the only alternative to the descent into global barbarism.
None of this lasted. Normality has returned. For better or for worse. We have learned to live with the virus, and politicians have adapted their measures more and more precisely and specifically. But the injustice is greater than ever. Politics is lagging behind. And the next crisis is coming.
