2024-07-20 04:33:58
The investigation into the Corona pandemic is still ongoing. Now a report shows that the former federal government is said to have bought excessive amounts of disinfectants, among other things.
Protocols with explosive power: Documents from the federal government’s Corona crisis team show questionable preferential treatment of Turkey and excessive purchases of disinfectants. This is reported by NDR, WDR and the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” (SZ).
The minutes are documents that were only published after years of delays and legal disputes. They paint a picture of questionable decisions and wasted resources.
According to media reports, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) and the Chancellery under Angela Merkel (CDU) responded openly to Turkish demands to lift travel warnings for popular tourist regions in July 2020. The minutes state: “In ministerial talks, Turkey has campaigned massively for the travel warning to be lifted,” and the Interior Ministry emphasized that Seehofer is “basically open to this.”
And this despite warnings from the Ministry of Health that there are “uncertainties” and that there are only “limited testing capacities” in Turkey. Another point concerns the excessive purchase of disinfectants.
According to a protocol dated May 12, 2020, it was determined that “more disinfectants (a total of about six million liters) had been ordered for the federal level than there was storage capacity available.” This purchase later led to the federal government having to sell a large part of the funds well below the price level – a loss-making business.
According to the Interior Ministry, a total of 7.9 million liters of disinfectant had been purchased by September 2020 at a cost of 50.2 million euros. In spring 2022, the government ultimately decided to sell the remaining 6.7 million liters to a utility company for 725,000 euros. This “avoided very costly hazardous waste disposal.” The Ministry of Health did not comment on this to the media.
The problem of communication with the population also became clear. A quote from the minutes of August 4, 2020 sums it up: “The problem is that parts of the population have a strong distrust of the traditional media/information providers.”
The solution to this was seen as cooperation with influencers, as NDR, WDR and “SZ” report. The Federal Press Office named 32 people with a high reach on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, to whom a total of around 489,000 euros was paid out. The minutes state: The Federal Press Office “concentrates on users and influencers who move in the established information bubbles, but at the same time still have links to the established media”. This includes the well-known influencers Fynn Kliemann and Sarah Engels. Neither of them commented on this when asked.
The now published minutes were obtained through the “Ask the State” portal in court. However, one thing is missing: the minutes of the meeting in which a strategy paper by scientists on how to inform the public was debated. The Interior Ministry suggested using a “shock effect”.