There is great outrage in Germany. The reason: Vice President of the Bundestag Wolfgang Kubicki (FDP) presented Corona protocols from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) at the beginning of August. These show that the RKI scientists wanted to give the all-clear in spring 2022, but were not allowed to do so for “political reasons” on the instructions of Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD). Kubicki therefore called on Lauterbach to resign.
Now, at the request of the CDU/CSU, Lauterbach’s ministry admitted that it influenced the decision not to lower the risk assessment at the beginning of 2022.
The justification states: “Due to the very dynamic development and the risk of overloading the health system, the BMG (Federal Ministry of Health; note) therefore decided together with the RKI (Robert Koch Institute; note) to maintain the risk assessment for the health of the population at the end of February 2022.”
However, there is a blatant contradiction here: At the beginning of 2022, Lauterbach’s ministry said that there was no overload of the health system: “A Germany-wide, regional simultaneous overload (…) did not occur.”
Bundestag Vice President Kubicki commented: Firstly, there was no overload of the health system. Secondly, there was no “joint decision” – the RKI wanted to give the all-clear but was not allowed to. And thirdly, the RKI “independently came to the conclusion that the situation was less dramatic than the health minister wanted to publicly convey.”
Kubicki’s conclusion: “Anyone who tells three untruths in a single sentence in order to maintain his narrative is unworthy of being a federal minister.”
The following passages from the protocols of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) place a heavy burden on Health Minister Karl Lauterbach:
“A downgrade beforehand would possibly be interpreted as a de-escalation signal, therefore politically undesirable.“ (…)
“Reducing the risk from very high to high was rejected by the BMG.“ (…)
“With regard to the BMG, the downgrade should for strategic reasons initially on high and not moderate.”
