The increasing violence of “anti-epidemic prevention protests” in Europe is driven by people’s “frustration with Europe’s economic decline and political incompetence,” Global Times observed in an unsigned column yesterday. The editors see the gradual “exhaustion of all parties” over a long period and the “lack of attention and remedial measures taken by European governments at the beginning of the epidemic” as what has collapsed trust in government. Add in the anti-vax campaign (the daily describes this as “the democratic `illness’ represented by supporters of `anti-intellectual innocence’"), and it is very difficult for European society to jointly take measures to fight the epidemic. That, then, delays any possible post-epidemic recovery, which then feeds the growing discontent.
Thus, their conclusion: “the epidemic has stretched every aspect of Europe’s health care system to its limits. If the situation continues, European countries would be caught in the middle of people’s complaints and the increased death toll.
