Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has highlighted the contribution of children and young people in containing the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We must thank many social groups and if there are people we should not only thank but also ask for forgiveness, then it is the very young”Steinmeier told the “Stern”. “Children and young people have had to give up a lot out of consideration for the elderly. They often did not feel seen”the Federal President said, five years after the first COVID-19 infections in Germany.
“We did not only keep children and young people away from school for the protection of their and others’ health, but we also took away from them their friends, movement and social environment for weeks. Many of them have suffered and some have taken long-term psychological damage”Steinmeier critically commented on the school closures, but did not rule out the possibility of school closures in the event of a new pandemic. “School closures must remain the last resort for the future.”
Steinmeier also urges a swift review of the pandemic after the federal election and threatens to establish a commission of his own if necessary. “The pandemic has left deep scars in society that are no longer overlooked”the Federal President said. “There are wounds that still hurt.”According to Steinmeier, the most important contribution to the review of the pandemic is its review. “We will have to agree on the ‘how’ of the review very quickly after the new election. It’s urgent. In my opinion, the public’s expectation is great.”
Steinmeier announced that he would act alone if necessary. “If a new government and a new Bundestag do not take this task seriously, I will do it”he said. It’s not about a “superficial search for culprits”Steinmeier said. “We must render ourselves an account of what went well, what did not go well and what caused harm. In our common interest, we must establish transparency. That’s what it’s all about.”
Government and opposition, as well as the traffic light coalition, had not been able to agree on an institutional review of the pandemic and its consequences in the past few months. The possibility of an investigative committee, an inquiry committee, or citizen’s councils had been discussed. Steinmeier showed a lack of understanding that no agreement had been reached. “In the review of the pandemic lies a huge chance. It is an advantage for democracy to establish transparency.”Review could offer the chance to win back people who had lost trust in democracy or at least doubted it. “If we do not review, then the unspoken remains. But what is much more dangerous: the unspoken creates suspicion. And that is something that populists like to manipulate.”
Steinmeier himself had avoided direct contact with his wife during a quarantine period during the COVID-19 pandemic. “In quarantine, I retreated to the attic with a few books and a laptop and camped on an air mattress”he recalled. “My wife and I avoided each other in the house to prevent possible harm to her health”the Federal President said. “That was already a time that will be remembered.”
Steinmeier had given his wife Elke Büdenbender a kidney in 2010. Transplant patients are particularly at risk due to a reduced immunity to infections. One of the security personnel of the head of state had been infected in early March 2020. Steinmeier had been with him in the same car from Zwickau to Berlin and then had to go into quarantine according to the rules in effect at the time.
During the quarantine, Steinmeier read, among other things, the book “1918. The World in Fever”by Laura Spinney. “That preoccupies you, even when you are reminded in the phase of a growing pandemic that the so-called Spanish Flu of 1918 in just four months claimed more victims than the First World War in four years”Steinmeier said.