Following the publication of unredacted documents about the meetings of the Corona crisis team at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) FDP Vice President and Vice President of the Bundestag Wolfgang Kubicki has called for consequences from Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD).
Although Kubicki did not mention the word resignation, he told the Tagesspiegel: “It would be important for political hygiene if he drew the consequences himself.” He himself will “in any case no longer support anything in parliament that comes from the Federal Ministry of Health. The rule of law must never give way to expediency.”
Kubicki accuses Lauterbach of exerting political influence on the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) during the Corona PandemicThis is evident from a multi-page article written by Kubicki published on its website on Thursday.
After Lauterbach takes office in 2021, the Ministry of Health is to Extent of the pandemic exaggerated Kubicki writes. It is said to have influenced the RKI to To prevent downgrading of the Corona warning levelThe RKI should also deliberately did not publish the correct figures on Corona deaths in Germany. Kubicki claims to have found evidence for this in the RKI protocols.
For Kubicki, the reason for Lauterbach’s influence is the German debate about compulsory vaccination. At the beginning of 2022, there was a “vital political interest” in “broad corona fear among the population in order to give the debate about compulsory vaccination the necessary boost…”, Kubicki writes in the letter.
Did the RKI withhold figures?
Kubicki’s first accusation concerns a key statistical indicator during the pandemic: the number of corona deaths. Were the consequences of the COVID infection the reason for the death of every so-called “corona death”? Kubicki says that since spring 2022 at the latest, the RKI has had “differentiated figures” on this question. However, these have not been published.
The effect: The number of Corona deaths is “always reported to be higher than it should have been.” This is said to be proven by the so-called “RKI leaks.”
Another accusation by the FDP politician concerns RKI internal discussions on downgrading the Corona warning levelThe institute’s scientists are said to have proposed a downgrade. However, a contrary assessment by the Federal Ministry of Health is said to have prevented this. Here, too, Kubicki quotes from the RKI protocols.
Alleged quotes from “internal consultations” of the RKI
- “The timing of publication depends on the approval of the BMG (…). A downgrade before then could possibly be interpreted as a de-escalation signal and therefore not politically desirable.”
- “Reduction of the risk from very high to high was rejected by the BMG.”
- “With regard to the BMG, the downgrade should initially be to high and not moderate for strategic reasons.”
Whether it is is actually an unfair influence by the Ministry of Healthcannot be determined.
For Kubicki, Lauterbach had exceeded the “boundaries of truth”. He had done this in order to “achieve a personal political goal” – namely, presumably, compulsory vaccination.
Through this “irresponsible attitude to the truthLauterbach has caused “serious damage to the reputation of the federal government and raised doubts about the integrity of state action”.
RKI protocols not yet released
Die Documents have not yet been released by the RKI itselfA group led by a journalist who is one of the critics of the federal government’s Corona policy said they had received the documents from a source at the institute, uploaded them to the Internet and also presented them at a press conference.
The RKI stated that it had “neither checked nor verified” the data sets. According to Lauterbach, the institute plans to publish its protocols itself at an as yet undisclosed date.
Not the first Kubicki attack on Lauterbach
It is not the first time that Kubicki has suggested such a step to Lauterbach in connection with Corona. At the beginning of 2023, there was already a dispute in the traffic light coalition over the health minister’s pandemic policy. “Nobody would accuse Karl Lauterbach of an honourable resignation“, Kubicki wrote on Facebook at the time.
He sharply criticized the Corona policy of the past few years, saying that it had failed particularly with children and the elderly. Children’s chances in life had been deprived of by deliberately creating fear, and the elderly in nursing homes had been treated inhumanely.
More on the topic of RKI protocols at Tagesspiegel Plus
Chair of the Ethics Council on the consequences of the pandemic “The country has had a traumatic experience” Is there a need for a pandemic review, Mr Müller? “An apology for the Corona period as a whole would not be appropriate” Victims of Corona policy I cannot forgive my mother for dying alone
