NOT NEARLY GOOD ENOUGH: Alena Buyx, chair of the German Ethics Council, warns against assigning blame for pandemic failures, would prefer instead “honest retrospection” & “learning” because that sounds much nicer.

Among the failures serving on the Ethics Council is its chairwoman, a medical ethicist and professor named Alena Buyx. Like Emily Oster, Buyx is an archetypal Head Girl – highly conscientious, deeply conformist, mildly intelligent, and totally bereft of all originality and independence of thought.

Also like Emily Oster, Buyx has decided that it would be better not to blame anyone for the hell that the Corona brigade has put all of us through. Her most pointed remarks to this effect come in a long and otherwise unremarkable New Years interview she gave to Die Zeit.

People aren’t generally in a forgiving mood about the biggest power and money grab in world history, nor should they be.