London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 02, 2025

Covid doesn’t care about your political theories

Covid doesn’t care about your political theories

The President of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, took some time out from presiding over the worst collapse in economic history last week to deliver a short lecture on how women leaders have proved better at dealing with Covid-19 than men.
According to the impeccably politically correct French politician, they were more 'caring', better at dealing with the science, and smarter at delivering clear messages on health. Not very surprisingly, there was a lot of gushing commentary to support her view, at least in the liberal press. Indeed, the superiority of women Prime Ministers and Presidents has been a common theme ever since the epidemic started.

But hold on. Less than a week later, the evidence for Lagarde’s claim is not looking quite so strong anymore. The four countries regularly cited for the 'women are better at fighting the virus' thesis have been Belgium, Germany, New Zealand, and Taiwan (although I imagine Nicola Sturgeon has been furiously writing letters to complain that she isn't on the list, even though Scotland’s performance hasn’t been anything to shout about). And yet, Belgium is now going back into lockdown amid a spike in infections, despite the best efforts of its Prime Minister Sophie Wilmes. And Germany’s rate of infections is going back up again sharply, in what may turn out to be its first proper wave. Its infection rate has doubled in the last week, and new testing regimes are being rushed through. Taiwan is still fine, and so is New Zealand, but the latter’s success always seemed to have more to do with being an island a very long way from anywhere than the qualities of 'female leadership'. Even so, the evidence is clearly starting to change.

That is not to say women leaders are worse at tackling the virus than men are. Certainly some of the highest profile male leaders in the world – such as Donald Trump and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro – appear to have done a spectacularly bad job. But the idea that anyone else has done better because they happen to be women doesn't look very convincing anymore.

It just looks to be a coincidence that a few countries, which happened to have been led by women, appear to have coped relatively well with the first wave, and are now struggling with a second one. The same is true of countries led by men. Vietnam did well to start with but is now witnessing a spike. Likewise, Israel. In reality, gender doesn’t seem to come into it one way of the other.

The important point is surely this. Covid-19 resolutely refuses to fit into any preconceived political theories, woke or otherwise. Insofar as we can tell, it doesn’t like humans very much at all, regardless of their politics. It is a nasty bug, which does its own thing. Trying to get it to support one agenda or another just ends up making you look silly – and it would be better if the likes of Lagarde stopped trying.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×