Not. As usual not. But now the Germans are finally beginning to notice.

“We have decided that hair salons can reopen on March 1.”

Despite myriad warnings in summer 2020, including from Merkel herself, of the dangers of a second pandemic wave, it was allowed to crash over the country at year’s end, almost completely unhindered. And despite Germany being the economically strongest country in the European Union, and despite holding the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU until the end of December, Merkel was unable to leverage that power when it came to buying sufficient quantities of vaccine.

“I can’t really give you a good answer.”