At the beginning of the pandemic, the focus was on virologist Christian Drosten, Health Minister Jens Spahn and RKI boss Lothar Wieler (from left to right)
Photo: DPA/Kay Nietfeld
For months, there have been calls for an investigation into the Corona period in Germany. Possible formats have been mentioned, such as a parliamentary committee of inquiry, an inquiry commission, expert panels or a citizens’ council. As the reactions to the so-called RKI files have shown this week, a productive investigation in any format is likely to be difficult. The documents, which comprise several thousand pages, were not only made public, but were also used by political circles of critics of the measures for their own purposes of interpretive sovereignty.
These are the minutes of meetings of a specialist committee with officials from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), but also from other authorities, which usually discussed the current situation and possible measures twice a week during the pandemic. The whole thing got rolling with a successful lawsuit against the highest disease control authority for the release of the documents. At the beginning of April, the RKI then published what it had requested – but with extreme blacking out not only the names of those involved, but also longer passages and entire agenda items. When there was widespread criticism, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) promised a largely unredacted publication, which is what happened for the period from January 2020 to April 2021. Why it took so long with the rest is unclear. In any case, the process was grist to the mill for people who think that the fact that the public was lied to on behalf of politicians was being covered up, because there was no deadly pandemic at all or because the measures, vaccines and restrictions on basic rights were more dangerous than this.
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The current leak even refutes some of the controversies. First, people on social media pounced on a protocol from March 16, 2020, in which the RKI discussed upgrading the risk assessment from low to high shortly before the first lockdown. The following sentence was made: “We are waiting for a sign from (redacted) when it comes to escalating the upgrade.” It was immediately claimed that some politicians and not the experts were making the important decisions. Experts, however, knew that the redacted person had to be the then RKI deputy head Lars Schaade, who was the most competent in the authority in the initial phase and made important decisions. And he was.
Now the actors are jumping on a passage from November 2021. It says: “The media is talking about a pandemic of the unvaccinated. From a technical point of view, this is not correct; the entire population is contributing. Should this be taken up in communication?” A representative of the Federal Center for Health Education said: “It serves as an appeal to everyone who is not vaccinated to get vaccinated.” Then a representative of another field said: “Minister says this at every press conference, probably deliberately, and cannot really be corrected.” The formulation was often used by Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) at the time, with an “especially” in front of it.
The assessment of the passage has several levels: In terms of content, Spahn now justifies himself by saying that the intensive care units in hospitals are mainly occupied by unvaccinated people. He expressed similar views back then. His successor Lauterbach supports him in this. This is demonstrably correct, but the wording ignores part of the reality.
However, this was already known to the general public at that time. Even if RKI officials are not allowed to openly criticize their employer, one could read in the authority’s weekly reports, which were widely read at the time, what share the vaccinated had in the infection rate and hospital occupancy. The author of these lines wrote an “nd” article in October 2021 with the somewhat provocative title: “The Wave of Vaccinated People.” The problem with the one-sided statements by Spahn and others was that the vaccinated and people with recovered status were negligently released into normality and lulled into a false sense of security by relaxing the 3G rules and the new 2G rules. Whether this contributed to the infection rate would have to be clarified when the Covid period is reviewed. However, this is the opposite of what some conspiracy theorists are now concerned about.
The leak refutes some of the concerns.
The second level is that of the communication strategy: Of course, the meetings at the RKI were also there to discuss what should be made public and how. The officials were not used to dealing with tabloid media and were not trained accordingly. At the same time, there was an effort not to unsettle people by publicly contradicting the minister and to avoid panic.
In doing so, it was also necessary to take the circumstances into account. For example, the availability of vaccines: Regarding the Astra-Zeneca vaccine, according to the minutes at the beginning of January 2021, it was said that it was “not a sure-fire success” like the other vaccines because it was “less perfect.” “Use must be discussed.” At the same time, this should not be pointed out too clearly. At that time, vaccines were very scarce and the mRNA competition was hardly available. However, nothing was swept under the carpet, as critics suggest. The effectiveness of Astra-Zeneca was good, but somewhat less good than Biontech and Moderna, and sinus vein thrombosis as a possible side effect occurred very rarely. Both were known and were also examined in detail in the recommendations of the Standing Vaccination Commission. On the contrary, the public got the impression that it was a “second-class vaccine.” With the result that it became a slow seller. Politicians in Brussels and Berlin concluded extremely unfavorable contracts with the mRNA manufacturers, with exclusion of liability and at excessive prices.
The same applies to the mask question, another red flag for critics of the measures: They quote a sentence from a protocol stating that there is “no evidence of the benefit of FFP2 masks beyond occupational safety”. However, the protection was not questioned per se, but only specifically that of FFP2 masks, and this at a time when even hospitals hardly had access to them. Therefore, there was discussion about whether surgical masks were not normally sufficient, especially since citizens were not using FFP2 masks correctly.
Ultimately, the files primarily show how the RKI gradually learned something, as virologist Alexander Kekulé puts it. For him, it is “astonishing how inexperienced they were at the beginning.”
Nothing really new can be found in the minutes. The mistakes of the RKI, but also those of politicians at federal and state level, have long been known. An investigation should focus on how these came about and what follows from them so that they are not repeated. This requires self-criticism from those involved instead of constant justifications, as is now the case again from Spahn. And a willingness to discuss measures critically, instead of claiming, as Lauterbach did, that we “got through the pandemic well” or, at the other extreme, demonizing all measures across the board. But the RKI files are also just a political battle for the right to interpret – exploit instead of work through is the motto.
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