2024-03-26 08:38:18
After a lawsuit, confidential minutes of the RKI crisis team were made public. The content provides deep insights into internal meetings.
For the first time, the protocols of the Corona crisis team at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) are publicly accessible. The magazine “Multipolar”, which is close to the corona denier scene, obtained approval through a lawsuit. Despite numerous redactions, the documents, which total more than 1,000 pages, provide deep insights into internal meetings.
Aware of the possible consequences of the lockdown
On March 17, 2020, the RKI upgraded the risk assessment for the health of Germans from “moderate” to “high”. According to the protocols now published, this new risk assessment should be prepared and “scaled up”. About the trigger for this upgrade, the documents say: “The risk assessment will be published as soon as (person’s name redacted) gives a signal.”
The blog “Multipolar” draws its own conclusion from this redaction: it was not the RKI that did the risk assessment, but an external person. However, the minutes from March 16 suggest that the RKI carried out the risk assessment itself – only the publication of the risk assessment depended on the release of the unnamed person.
background
The protocols cover the period from January 2020 to April 2021.
However, the consequences of such a lockdown seemed to become apparent in the first year. With regard to measures in African countries, the RKI noted on December 16th: “Lockdowns sometimes have more serious consequences than Covid itself.”
No evidence for masks in private individuals
The protocols also contain information about the mask requirement, especially FFP2 masks. In a meeting on October 30, 2020, the crisis team made it clear: “There is no evidence for the use of FFP2 masks outside of occupational safety.” This information could also be made available to the public, according to the crisis team.
In winter 2020, politicians introduced a stricter mask requirement including FFP2 masks. The mathematician and modeler Kristan Schneider still supports this decision: “Every barrier offers protection against infection.” In addition, forecast models can be used to quantify the effects of individual measures such as masks. And these had a “big effect”.
Regarding the lack of evidence, he added: “It is important to interpret the term ‘evidence’ correctly. A scientific test setup that would clearly prove that FFP2 masks protect against infection is difficult and would not be ethically justifiable, but it can one can draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the masks.”
To person
Dr. Kristan Schneider is a mathematics professor at the Faculty of Applied Computer and Life Sciences at Mittweida University, Saxony. His research focus is modeling epidemiological processes. Among other things, he also modeled developments during the pandemic.
Vaccination campaign despite doubts
The protocols also express doubts about the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine. On January 8, 2021, the RKI addresses the vaccines and explains that Astrazeneca is “not a sure-fire success” because the vaccine “is less perfect”. The use must therefore be discussed.
The group also noted that there may have to be restrictions for Astrazeneca because data for older people is very limited. Two months later, at the beginning of March, the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) recommended the vaccine for all age groups and referred to new findings from studies.
Kristan Schneider says that he too was skeptical about the Astrazeneca vaccine because the clinical studies with the initial vaccination rhythm only showed an efficiency of just over 70 percent. However, he points out that for this reason the interval between the two vaccinations was changed, thus achieving better efficiency. Overall, he thinks mRNA-based vaccines are a better method.