Why has Germany done so much better fighting Covid-19 than the UK? What can cultural analysis and psychology tell us?

Most of us are spending time thinking about covid-19, trying to understand how our countries are managing this crisis and how we will live with this virus in the future. There are no simple solutions, and it is hard to interpret the current situation. There are so many different data points and information is being counted in different ways in different countries. There are variations such as different levels and types of testing, which make it very hard to compare countries. We will only have a full picture a few years from now, when data scientists are able to make more complete comparisons and we will understand more in retrospect. We should be wary of any simplistic conclusions, and be ready to revise our understanding based on evidence gathered in the future.

However, it is clear that some countries are doing much better than others.

Although no numbers are perfect, at the moment, because testing rates vary so much, the best way to compare countries is probably deaths per million people. Using that metric, at the time of writing, Taiwan has 0.3 deaths per million of population, Hong Kong has 0.5, New Zealand has 4 deaths per million of population, South Korea 5, Greece 13, Czech Republic 22, Iceland 29, Finland 39, Denmark 79 and Germany has suffered 80 deaths per million of population.

This contrasts with the USA which so far has had 199 deaths per million of population and the UK which has 405. 

The city figures are even more shocking with New York having 1,227 deaths per million of population and London 857. Using comparative figures Berlin has 40 deaths per million and Seoul has 0.2.

How can we understand such significant differences? 

In Europe, the UK and Germany are similar sized countries with similar populations and similarly developed economies. Germany has 80 deaths per million, the UK has 405, five times as many!  There could be a number of causes.  To be fair to the UK, there is more interaction with China than other countries in Europe so this would have led to more initial spreading of the virus. In January there were 3 flights a week direct from Wuhan to Heathrow and it is reasonable to assume there was much more travel between the UK and China than between Germany and China in this period. It’s worth remembering that the UK has the largest Chinese population in Europe and the three countries with the highest number of Chinese citizens are the UK, France and Italy, all countries that have been hit hard by covid-19.

Even allowing for this, and other environmental factors, five times the number of per capita deaths is still shocking and worthy of further investigation.

One of the areas we work on at OneWorld Consulting is intercultural consulting. We use various different cultural models, most commonly referring to the work of Geert Hofstede, because of the size and quality of the dataset used. Hofstede developed his model of national cultural dimensions from the analysis of tens of thousands of questionnaires completed by people around the world. The dimensions cannot tell us what any one individual is like, because we all vary, but they do represent statistically valid tendencies which show us consistent differences between national cultures.

Here is a summary of the six dimensions, using the term 'achievement orientation' for one of the dimensions which I think is more helpful than Hofstede's term 'masculinity'.

We often compare Germany and the UK when we are explaining the different dimensions. Individual German and British citizens demonstrate all the different cultural preferences possible, so we can never make assumptions about one individual. But taken together, the population of each country has a tendency to demonstrate the preferences captured by Hofstede's questionnaires.

Germany and the UK are quite similar in terms of geography, economics and demographics. Culturally, they are similar in some ways. Both have low power distance, both are quite achievement (or 'masculinity' in Hofstede's term) oriented. However on three of Hofstede’s six dimensions, there are significant differences. Germany scores much higher for uncertainty avoidance and long term orientation, and lower for indulgence. Also the UK scores higher for individualism. For more on what these dimensions mean you can visit the Hofstede Insights website and also see a presentation of my views here.

The Uncertainty Avoidance dimension expresses the degree to which the members of a society feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity. The fundamental issue here is how a society deals with the fact that the future can never be known: should we try to control the future or just let it happen?

To avoid ambiguous situations, countries with a tendency towards uncertainty avoidance have a strong need for strict laws and rules, safety and security measures. Low uncertainty avoidance generally manifests in a hope for success. 

Cultures with high uncertainty avoidance (such as Germany or Turkey) tend to act more quickly in a crisis, because they want to remove the uncertainty or anxiety that the crisis creates. Low uncertainty avoidance cultures such as the UK, tend to be more tolerant of the anxiety that uncertainty brings, and therefore slower to act in a crisis.

Recently the UK's Sunday Times wrote about how the UK 'sleepwalked into disaster' by not reacting quickly enough to the covid-19 threat. On January 24th, the Prime Minister's "spokesman played down the looming threat from the east and reassured the nation that we were “well prepared for any new diseases”. The confident, almost nonchalant, attitude displayed that day in January would continue for more than a month."

I believe the UK's cultural tendency to low uncertainty avoidance can help us understand what was going wrong. The Sunday Times quotes a a senior department of health insider in the UK government - 

“I had watched Wuhan but I assumed we must have not been worried because we did nothing. We just watched. A pandemic was always at the top of our national risk register — always — but when it came we just slowly watched. We could have been Germany but instead we were doomed by our incompetence, our hubris and our austerity.”

Let's compare two of the countries that seem to have handled the coronavirus crisis most effectively, with two that are seen to have been least effective. South Korea and Germany vs the United Kingdom and the USA.

The relevant dimensions here are Individualism, Uncertainty Avoidance, Long Term Orientation and Indulgence.

The UK and the USA are significantly more Individualistic than Germany and South Korea. They are much more relaxed about Uncertainty. They tend to focus on the short term. The UK and USA's high score on indulgence (vs restraint) shows that relative to other cultures, people don't try hard to control their desires and impulses.

South Korea and Germany, in contrast, have a much stronger focus on the group and community, rather than the individual. Uncertainty makes people anxious so they act more quickly, they focus on the long term rather than short term gains and they restrain their impulses. And as a result, they have managed the covid-19 crisis much more effectively. They've acted quickly, with a concern for the whole community and the long-term and have expected people to follow the rules and manage their impulses.

I think the Uncertainty Avoidance dimension is a key factor here. Greece has the highest Uncertainty Avoidance score of any country in the world and took quick and strict social distancing actions in early March. Greece has a notably low figure of 13 covid-19 deaths per million. Sweden has the lowest Uncertainty Avoidance score of any of the countries we have looked at here and has taken a much more relaxed approach to social distancing and currently has 263 deaths per million people.

Looking at cultural dimensions can help us understand other events as well. Pascal Naue applied the Individualism and Uncertainty Avoidance dimensions in an analysis of the causes of the US sub-prime mortgage crisis of 2007-9 which caused the biggest recent economic shock until covid-19. Naue sees the United States' high Individualism and low Uncertainty Avoidance as contributing factors to that financial crisis.

Of course national culture is not the only factor that explains how countries have dealt with covid-19 differently. Leadership makes a difference too. A recent editorial in The New York Times says - "leadership may be hard to define, but in times of crisis it is easy to identify". Many people have pointed out that some of the countries that have handled the crisis most effectively are led by women. These women leaders in Germany New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Iceland and Taiwan have different cultural backgrounds, represent different parts of the political spectrum and have different ages and education. The Guardian comments that "not all the women who have excelled in the corona crisis are national leaders. Jeong Eun-kyeong, the unflappable head of South Korea’s centre for disease control, has become a national icon after overseeing a “test, trace, contain” strategy that has made the country the world’s coronavirus role-model" with only 5 deaths per million people.

So is there something that makes women leaders more effective in a crisis like the current pandemic?

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox writes that these female leaders have effectively combined decisiveness, truthfulness, transparency and empathy. Zoe Marks writing in the Washington Post believes that "to the extent that female heads of state are performing better than men against the coronavirus crisis, it’s likely because women are expected to be — and have learned to be — more democratic leaders, more collaborative and more compassionate communicators."

I don't think I'm the only person who in recent months and years has wondered if my country could borrow Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand as our own leader for a while.  Her handling of the Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019 and other issues in New Zealand had prepared us to be impressed by how her government has responded to covid-19. She took bold steps in March with the motto “Go hard and go early.” The New York Times believes that the "master class on how to respond belongs to Jacinda Ardern ... Her message was clear.... and it was compassionate: “Please be strong, be kind and united against Covid-19.”" For examples of how leaders should communicate in a crisis check out her Facebook live videos made informally from her home. Her authenticity, intelligence, calmness and openness shine through. 

New Zealand is quite similar to the UK and the US in terms of cultural dimensions. The country currently has 4 deaths per million of population, so this does suggest that sometimes individual leaders can outweigh cultural preferences.

As I've mentioned above, we can't explain countries' performance on the covid-19 test by just one element of culture, individual leadership or other economic or structural factor. It's a complex puzzle.

One other important dimension in handling a crisis is optimism. Martin Seligman's research on optimism demonstrates the important role it plays in our lives. Optimistic people are generally healthier, happier and more successful. Optimistic sports teams win more games and candidates with the most optimistic messages are more likely to win elections. Remember Obama’s ‘Yes we can’ and Ekrem Imamoglu’s ‘Everything is going to be great.’  However optimism can have a downside too. Optimists can have a less accurate perception of reality than pessimists. In our executive search and coaching work with our clients, we emphasize that although optimistic leaders generally outperform pessimists, when you are recruiting a head of legal, health & safety or perhaps finance, you might be better off with a pessimist in the interests of balance and protecting the company's vital interests.

In his studies of unrealistic optimism, Weinstein has shown evidence of the harmful effects of optimistic biases in risk perception related to a host of health hazards. Those who underestimate the risk, take less action.

Optimistic illusions of performance are also likely to be associated with narcissism, and that brings us on to the leaders of two large countries that are seen as having performed poorly in their handling of covid-19 and have very high death rates. Donald Trump has explicitly said that he sees himself as a 'cheerleader' for the USA.

He has also said 'I'm not about bad news. I want to give people hope,' Compare this with the nuanced, serious, analytical and cautious approach of Angela Merkel, with a doctorate in chemistry or the authentic empathy of Jacinda Ardern delivering tough and balanced messages.

Boris Johnson has acknowledged that he is 'often accused of being unnecessarily boosterish’ and his optimism is one of his defining traits. The Sunday Times article quoted above shows how Johnson's optimism damaged the UK's preparation for covid-19. "Towards the end of the second week of February, the prime minister was demob happy. After sacking five cabinet ministers and saying everyone “should be confident and calm” about Britain’s response to the virus, Johnson vacated Downing Street on February 13 [and] headed to the country for a “working” holiday." 

The Western world’s leading blonde optimists, and popular successes, Trump and Johnson, have demonstrated the deadly downside of having optimists in charge during a crisis.  

To summarize I want to make it clear that I’m not saying these cultural and personality factors are the most important reason for the difference between countries performance regarding covid-19; there are a great many complex causes involved. Also, it's clear that being in government today is to have to deal with impossible dilemmas and no-one thinks the challenges facing our leaders are easy. At times like these, as Rahm Emanuel recently said “To govern is to choose between bad and worse."

We should however, look at why some countries are doing so much better than others, with death rates in large countries ranging from 0.3 per million of population to over 400. The cultural elements do play a role here and there is a striking degree of correlation. Countries who have high uncertainty avoidance, low individualism, who are more focused towards restraint and the long term are doing better in this crisis. Fewer people are dying in their countries. Although optimistic leaders are generally more successful, in these circumstances high optimism is a serious risk factor. And of course, having a woman leader or more women in senior decision making roles, certainly helps as well. 

What do you think? Agree or disagree? Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section below.