World

Monday

Constantin Eckner

How Germany has managed to perform so many Covid-19 tests

Over the past few weeks there has been widespread curiosity about the German healthcare system. Since the coronavirus outbreak, the infection curve in Germany has risen just as steeply as in Italy, and the measures it has imposed are quite similar to those elsewhere. Yet, its death rate is noticeably lower. Of 100,132 Germans who have tested positive, only 1,584 have died, as of this morning. Compared to fatality rates above 6 per cent in neighbouring France, Netherlands or Belgium, that seems remarkable. The most important reason for Germany’s rate is intense testing, using the South Korean model where widespread testing and isolation helped flatten the curve of new infections.

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Latest Chinese data suggests most coronavirus infections are asymptomatic

As the lockdown in China lifts across its cities, the authorities are turning their attention to a potential second wave. As of this month, Beijing is starting to release its daily data on asymptomatic carriers of the coronavirus. The British Medical Journal crunched the data: the first day, it said, showed that of 166 new infections across the country, 130 of them were asymptomatic (78 per cent). Tom Jefferson, an Oxford epidemiologist, commented on the data to the British Medical Journal: ‘The sample is small, and more data will become available. Also, it’s not clear exactly how these cases were identified. But let’s just say they are generalisable. And even if they are

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Coronavirus marks the end of open borders in Europe

What with the wall-to-wall media coverage of the coronavirus pandemic it had rather slipped one’s mind that there are other serious issues confronting Europe, but France got a bloody reminder at the weekend. On Saturday, a knifeman ran amok in the south-eastern town of Romans-sur-Isere, killing two people and wounding five. According to eyewitnesses, the alleged perpetrator, a Sudanese national who was granted asylum in 2017, accompanied his deadly assault outside a boulangerie with cries of ‘Allah Akbar’. It is claimed in the French media that when police searched his flat they found handwritten documents in which he complained of living in ‘a country of non-believers’. Two other Sudanese refugees

Saturday

John Jenkins

Coronavirus is a ticking time-bomb for the Middle East's old guard

I used to believe that there were only two options for leadership change in the Middle East: the coup or the coffin. But now there’s another thing for embattled authoritarians to worry about. It’s not the Republican Guard, CIA, MI6 or Mossad, Delta Force or the SAS – it’s Covid-19. And while the virus may well end up fundamentally changing many of our own political expectations, not least about China (Huawei anyone?), and the resilience of our own societies, it may have an even bigger impact on the fragile political ecosystem of the Middle East and North Africa. And that’s because it is there that a superannuated old order has

John Keiger John Keiger

Could coronavirus lead to Frexit?

Is France flirting with the idea of Frexit again? Coronavirus is currently provoking a chorus of ‘reprendre le contrôle’ (take back control) across the political spectrum. The epidemic is laying bare France’s dependence on outside states for essentials such as masks, medicines, test kits and ventilators. Even arch-Europhile Emmanuel Macron visiting a French mask manufacturer declared this week: ‘We have to produce more in France, on our territory, from now on to reduce our dependency… we must rebuild our national and European sovereignty’. His reference to Europe is not unusual, but highlighting national sovereignty is. The second ‘take back control’ stimulant comes from growing irritation with the European Union. Images

Fredrik Erixon

No lockdown, please, we’re Swedish

Uppsala Who would have thought that Sweden would end up being the last place in Europe where you could go for a beer? We have, in our normalcy, suddenly become an exotic place. Other countries are closing their cities, schools and economies, but life in our corner of the world is surprisingly ordinary. Last weekend I went to the gym, met up with friends, and sat in the spring sun at outdoor cafés. My foreign friends are stunned. They can’t fathom that there are still people enjoying the fruits of civilisation, as if the natural reaction to pandemics is to embrace totalitarianism. And they wrestle with another conundrum: how on

Friday

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Liberté, égalité and fraternité are being put to the test in France

When I left my apartment for my morning run today I saw that someone had scrawled on the courtyard in large chalk letters ‘Tenez Bon, Les Voisins‘ (Hang in there, neighbours). It could have been a message for the whole country. France is flagging after two and a half weeks of complete lockdown and the fact that today is the start of the official Easter holidays will only fray nerves further. To make matters worse, the country will be treated to a taste of summer this weekend with temperatures from Paris to the Pyrenees forecast to touch 23C on Sunday. In an interview today the Minister of the Interior, Christophe

Thursday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Coronomics: how surreal is this economic crash?

40 min listen

On the podcast this week, we take a look at the exceptional nature of ‘coronomics’ and what comes after (00:55), how the Swedish are dealing with coronavirus differently (18:50), and lessons in solitude from a polar explorer (31:15).

Wednesday

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Spain and Italy have been abandoned by the EU

If ever there was a time for the EU to show the benefit of belonging to an economic bloc with coherent cross-border cooperation you would think it would be now. But that is not quite how things are working out. On the contrary, the EU has erupted into open warfare between north and south. The rifts caused by the 2008/09 financial crisis have been torn open again, with Italy and Spain desperately pleading for help from a reluctant Germany and other northern countries. If anyone thought harmony would reign once troublesome Britain was out of the EU, there was not much evidence of it at a virtual summit held last week

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Islamists are frustrating Pakistan's fight against coronavirus

The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Pakistan currently sits at 2,042 alongside 26 deaths. With only limited healthcare facilities, the country is facing a perilously delayed reaction. Most of Pakistan’s initial cases were pilgrims returning from places like Iran and Saudi Arabia. But the virus quickly spread thanks to a failure to screen and quarantine. Even so, almost a third of the infections in Pakistan are now being spread from within the community. That figure is expected to rise owing to a combination of appalling mismanagement and masochistic inaction. Such failures can be gauged by the state’s refusal to shut down the mosques. Weeks after reporting its first coronavirus cases, and over a month since

Daniel DePetris

Bernie Sanders is down but not out

Mathematically speaking, Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign is as dead as disco. After a streak of victories in big, delegate-rich states on and after Super Tuesday, Joe Biden is leading Sanders by 273 delegates. For Sanders to pull off a political miracle, he would need to win 64.2 per cent of the remaining delegates over the next three months, something nobody but the most rabid Bernie supporter envisions the Vermont senator doing.  Some of the largest states left to vote – Georgia, Ohio, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York – aren’t seen as particularly ripe fruit for the Sanders campaign to pluck. The best the senator can do is win a few

Tuesday

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Did the people of Tokyo ever really want the Olympics anyway?

One of the first things you need to learn abut Japan is the concept of honne and tatemae. ‘Hone’ refers to one’s true feelings, and ‘tatemae’ is what one says in public. It doesn’t take very long to learn that the two are very rarely aligned. In a bizarre time warp moment the official Olympic countdown clock that stands outside Tokyo station was reset on Monday (it reads: 478 days to Tokyo 2020(?)). It will no doubt soon be reported that ‘the people of Tokyo’ have been devastated by the postponement, that they had, as one, been passionately enthusiastic about the event, eagerly anticipating the chance to welcome the world for

John Keiger John Keiger

Macron’s updated coronavirus statistics will test French morale

On Saturday night France’s Prime Minister spoke to the French people flanked by the Health Minister, the Director General of Health (DGS) and three epidemiologists, to reassure the public that the government would be more transparent about the spread of coronavirus. Despite President Macron’s increasing media appearances in the ‘war on corona’ a 25 March opinion poll showed 90 per cent of the French public are anxious, 39 points more than on 11 March before the lockdown. Although 64 per cent claimed their morale was holding up, 56 per cent said they had lost faith in the executive’s management of the crisis. This is very different to a poll on

Monday

David Patrikarakos David Patrikarakos

Beware China's masked diplomacy

‘How do you deal toughly with your banker?’ This was the not quite rhetorical question that Hillary Clinton asked Australia’s then-prime minister Kevin Rudd at a lunch back in 2010. In the prophylactic language of the diplomat she was then, Clinton was asking how the world should deal with an ever more aggressive China, and she was prescient. Ten years on, Beijing is ascendant. It holds over a trillion dollars of US debt (banker indeed); as of writing, one of its major companies is set to control Britain’s 5G network; and it has spent years hoovering up Africa’s resources with little care for the (admittedly scant) international condemnation it receives

Constantin Eckner

Germany may never be the same after coronavirus

When Emmanuel Macron told the French people how his government would tackle coronavirus, he used the word ‘war’ six times. Boris Johnson adopted a similar stance, invoking wartime language to tell Brits we will ‘win the fight’ and beat the enemy’. In her recent televised speech, chancellor Angela Merkel specifically avoided suggesting that Germany is ‘at war’ with the coronavirus. Such over-the-top rhetoric wouldn‘t fit Merkel‘s persona, and to declare war would unsettle rather than motivate Germans. But the softer language doesn’t mean that this isn’t a pivotal moment in Germany’s history.  The country went into lockdown on 23 March to battle the continuing spread of the coronavirus. For the first time since its foundation

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Is France being pushed to breaking point?

As France prepares to enter its third week of confinement the Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, has warned that ‘the fight has only just begun’. Coronavirus has claimed 2,606 French lives to date, but at a press conference on Saturday evening Philippe said: ‘The first 15 days of April will be even more difficult than the last 15 days.’ Earlier in the week Philippe had praised the resolve of the vast majority for respecting the lockdown, and he urged France to hold the course while announcing that the confinement will continue until at least April 15. ‘This struggle will last,’ he said. ‘We will only win by being disciplined and observing

Yuan Ren

China is baffled by Britain's coronavirus response

For the past two weeks, my relatives and friends in China have been frantically messaging me worried for my health and mortified that Britain’s pubs and clubs were still open. With Boris Johnson’s announcement of a lockdown, their concern hasn’t eased as images of London’s parks as busy as ever raise doubt over how seriously the British government is taking the threat of coronavirus. News of the Prime Minster testing positive for the virus certainly didn’t help. Among Chinese students in the UK, there is widespread panic that the window for returning to China may be closing, as the Chinese government blocked all foreigner passport holders from entering the country

Daniel DePetris

Trump's coronavirus delusion

As tens of millions of Americans remain stuck at home in self-isolation, the country’s politicians are busy sniping at each other over who is at fault for a epidemic that Dr. Anthony Fauci – Trump’s coronavirus expert – predicts could kill up to 200,000 Americans. It’s a story far more interesting and potentially calamitous than the normal tale of Republicans and Democrats pointing fingers at one another (although there is plenty of that too). America’s federalised system of government is at war with itself. Take President Trump, the man at the very top of the system. Ducking responsibility when something goes wrong and hogging all the credit when everything goes right is

Jim Lawley

Spain faces a political reckoning after its coronavirus crisis

Here in Spain we have proper lockdown. We’re not ‘allowed out once a day for exercise’ over here. ‘You Brits don’t get it,’ my neighbour chuckled over the wall. ‘You’re teetotallers – apart from a glass of whisky every day,’ he continued. ‘You say, “Brexit means Brexit”. Well, lockdown means lockdown!’ But even though we have ‘proper’ lockdown, he and I can’t complain. We live in Avila in central Spain. From our houses we have beautiful views of the town’s medieval walls and ancient cathedral, and beyond to the snow-capped mountains. Most Spaniards live in flats but we have gardens and patios. I step out every now and then to