I had resolved to get less excited about Karl Lauterbach. His rise has been the biggest fascination for me since I once got an A on my physical education report card. I have to learn to let go of the man. Otherwise I’ll end up in a state that predestines me to head the Ministry of Health. So I know the danger. My flesh was willing. But the spirit weakened when Lauterbach recently announced to Anne Will that the corona vaccinations were “more or less free of side effects”. That has to be said again and again.
Only by whom? Who plays the herald to such nonsense? I mean, not even the manufacturers claim that. Instead, they wrote extensive package inserts, had themselves partially released from product liability and have not yet submitted the safety studies required for regular approval. A debatable formulation would be that the benefits and risks of said preparations are in a reasonable relationship based on the current state of knowledge. But “more or less free of side effects” is to be taken as seriously as a bride’s assurance that she is more or less a virgin.
I can guess what will happen if reports of unwanted vaccination effects increase. Then Lauterbach will announce that he was one of the first to warn against it. After all, last week he also sat with Sandra Maischberger and said that he “said very early on that the omicron is more harmless than the delta wave. (…) I remember something like that very clearly.” It was impossible to read what she remembered on his hostess’ face. I admire the ability of the talk moderators to let Lauterbach talk again and again without being moved.
One can accuse the Internet of a number of things, but not that it is more forgetful than Karl Lauterbach: on November 29th – that would actually have been early, because Omicron had only just been discovered – he reckoned with “a particularly dangerous variant”. Ten days later, he assumed that this was “particularly threatening for children”. In mid-December, for him, it “eclipsed everything we have seen so far in the pandemic”. Shortly before Christmas, he did not rule out that it would be “similarly difficult to the Delta variant”. On January 17, he underlined their relative harmlessness with reference to a “massive strain on the intensive care capacities” and “many thousands of corona deaths again”.
I’m not concerned with whether these statements were scientifically sound or politically wise. No, I am amazed at how Lauterbach reflects on his crisis communication. It may be my obsession, but I see a discrepancy there – unless by ‘very early’ he meant 4:30 yesterday morning. Some say Lauterbach lies. Hmm. Lying is done consciously and by people who know better. Besides, a lie is not enough for me to disqualify a politician as such. I’m a cynic and I tend to trust people who sometimes think truthful information is not very clever than someone who credibly gives me the impression of a constant loss of self-control. That’s why, as a columnist, I have to finally get my own Lauterbach problem under control. Hopefully I can get out of his vortex.