European Policy against Corona: Adequate Restrictions or a Kind of Hygienic-Totalitarism?

Abstract

The corona pandemic is keeping the world under its spell: time for an economic and political stocktaking. The article covers the following topics: Why is the current pandemic leading to such harsh government responses worldwide and also in industrialized countries? Is the reason for this a deadly pandemic or is it rather a neoliberal cost-minimizing health care system that saves costs ignoring any consequences for its efficiency? Are the previous harsh measures of the countries' governments to restrict social and economic life scientifically epidemiologically analyzed and thus expedient, or is the state acting primarily fear-based: So is the sense of proportion given to all the measures to combat the pandemic that deeply interfere with our social freedoms? What will be the central economic costs of the economic and social lockdown and thus the consequences for our economy, for our civil rights and our free society?