Angela Merkel
The Chancellor sees "light at the end of the tunnel"
Chancellor Angela Merkel is very concerned about the corona pandemic
© imago images / Future Image
The corona pandemic is keeping Germany firmly in its grip, but Angela Merkel is cautiously optimistic in a new interview.
The situation caused by the corona pandemic is difficult, but there is hope. Angela Merkel (66) explained this in an interview with the broadcasters RTL and ntv. "It's going to be very long for all of us. The pandemic has been going on for almost a year now and when we started last spring, people thought maybe after the summer the hardest part would be over," said the Chancellor. Now one could still say that "the apex of the second wave" has been exceeded. One now has to "hold out a little longer". You "see a faint light at the end of the tunnel, but it's an incredibly difficult time".
Vaccines are about "a real basis for saying there is hope". However, there is much that cannot be predicted in connection with the pandemic, such as the mutation. "Now it's about weeks that we still have to hold out – always provided we don't get even more aggressive mutations, i.e. changes in the virus."
"We have to be very, very careful now"
Merkel knows difficult fates that also preoccupy her. The Chancellor knows, among other things, "how much fear there is". She also knows "what that means for the artists". Politicians are trying to help, but they cannot take away the citizens' fears and worries so easily. The government's decisions are "not taken lightly either". But she warns: "We have to be very, very careful now so that not so many people die in the last few meters."
"It is not for nothing that I am always on duty," says Merkel, who says that she will take these fates home with her. You think about it a lot and ponder what you can do better with some. But neither should one arouse false hopes. "How I would like to announce something good," explains the Chancellor. She could not yet promise complete normality, "but a lot will get much better".
Although she sleeps "sufficiently, I sometimes wake up at night and think about things." The times are also difficult for the Chancellor. "I want things to be well thought out when making decisions, I think back and forth and up and down before I make a decision and that already concerns me." During the pandemic, they could "switch off badly".