Coronavirus: Germany Whips Up Anti-Americanism

by Soeren Kern  •  March 19, 2020 at 5:30 am

     

• The attempt to whip up anti-Americanism appears to be an effort by the German government to blunt public criticism of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her cabinet for their lackadaisical response to the coronavirus epidemic.

• The story was quickly picked up and uncritically disseminated by print and broadcast media throughout Europe — and America. Nearly all quoted the Die Welt article verbatim without confirming the story on their own.

• "To make it clear again on coronavirus: CureVac has not received from the US government or related entities an offer before, during and since the Task Force meeting in the White House on March 2. CureVac rejects all allegations from press." — Statement by CureVac, March 26, 2020.

• U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell denied the allegations. "Not true," he tweeted. "The Welt story was wrong. But Business Insider, Reuters and others went with it anyway despite not having their own sources. Now everyone is back peddling."

• The newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine, in an article titled, "CureVac Has Not Received an Offer from the U.S. Government," described the Welt article as "Fake News" concocted by CureVac in order to secure government funding. The paper suggested that the German government helped to promote the lie...

• "A German minister, who heard from another German minister, that a German journalist, who was not there, reported that the U.S. president offered $1 billion for a company that has not yet developed a vaccine against COVID-19.... For my taste, much hearsay, the striving of Die Welt for many clicks, the fueling of resentment against Trump and perhaps intelligent marketing by the company for public funding in times of the corona crisis." — Reader comment in Die Welt, March 17, 2020.

The German government has promoted a fake news story asserting that the United States is trying to gain exclusive access to an experimental coronavirus vaccine being developed by CureVac, a German biotech firm. Pictured: A company car sporting the CureVac logo, seen in front of the firm's headquarters in Tübingen, Germany. (Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)

The German government has promoted a fake news story asserting that the United States is trying to gain exclusive access to an experimental coronavirus vaccine being developed by a German biotech firm.

The story — which has sparked anti-American furor in Germany and elsewhere in Europe — has been swiftly debunked by the company, which denied that it had received financial offers from the U.S. government or any related entity.

The attempt to whip up anti-Americanism appears to be an effort by the German government to blunt public criticism of Chancellor Angela Merkel and her cabinet for their lackadaisical response to the coronavirus epidemic.

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How the European Union Turned the Coronavirus into a Pandemic

by Con Coughlin  •  March 19, 2020 at 5:00 am

     

• The EU's failure to address the coronavirus issue earlier has resulted in the Schengen Agreement, which stipulates that the citizens of any EU state can travel freely throughout the union, becoming null and void.

• Perhaps the most shameful episode concerning inter-EU relations since the start of the coronavirus outbreak was Germany's refusal to allow the export of much-needed face masks and ventilators to Italy after the Italian government made a direct appeal to the rest of the EU for help. Instead of demonstrating the so-called solidarity that is supposed to underpin the EU's founding ethos, the German government issued a ban on the export of the equipment to Italy.

• The EU's handling of the coronavirus has not just been incompetent. It raises serious questions as to whether it is about to become yet another victim of the deadly pandemic.

This week, trucks trying to enter Poland from Germany have been subjected to a tailback dozens of kilometres long, as Polish border guards insisted on checking the temperatures, health and documentation of drivers seeking to enter the country. Pictured: Trucks converging onto the A12 highway stand backed up before Germany's border to Poland on March 18, 2020 near Zernsdorf, Germany. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

The emergence of Europe as the new epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic has as much to do with the European Union's inept handling of the crisis as it does with the resilience of the virus itself.

When the world first learned about the existence of coronavirus in China at the start of the year, the EU's response, like much of the rest of the world's, was to adopt a wait and see approach as to how it developed.

The problem for the EU, though, is that it has maintained this lackadaisical approach long after it became clear that the virus was going to develop into a global, rather than a specifically Chinese, issue. More pertinently, the EU's failure to raise its game, after the rapid spread of the virus resulted in much of Europe coming to a standstill, means that the EU is now trying to play catch-up in terms of asserting a leadership role.

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Is There a Link Between Smoking, Doing Damage to Your Lungs and Coronavirus?

March 19, 2020 at 4:00 am

     

(Image source: iStock)

Gatestone Institute to examine the impact of legalized marijuana, smoking and vaping in 2020. Details to follow...