There was a lot of discussion during the Corona crisis: about incidences, R values, virus variants, the origin of the virus, intensive care bed occupancy, the plight of nursing care, deaths with and from Corona, PCR tests, rapid tests, excess mortality calculations, curfews, distance rules, pandemic-prone supply chains, masks , vaccines, vaccination effectiveness, vaccination side effects, school closures, post-Covid and much more. For a long time, political advice and media contributions were dominated by virologists and modelers; there was too little discussion in formats that brought together the broad range of topics politically and too little in formats that promoted social participation.
After the acute crisis, various parties called for a “processing of the situation”. It remained somewhat unclear what exactly was meant by that. There have been a number of evaluation studies on a wide variety of aspects of fighting the pandemic, court rulings on individual measures and also an evaluation of the measures on the basis of the Infection Protection Act.
The demands for “reappraisal” came on the one hand from scientists who had developed a critical view of infection protection measures, and on the other hand from milieus that increasingly positioned themselves as a lateral-thinking fundamental opposition. To some extent, this may have been a reflection of the lack of democratic discourse during the pandemic.
Recently, the demand for a reappraisal has increasingly come from politicians themselves. Yesterday, the Federal President himself called for an “honest reappraisal”. This will make the lateral thinkers sit up and take notice: So has there been no “honest” reappraisal so far? What was covered up? Were the deaths caused by the infection exaggerated and those resulting from the vaccination hidden? That’s certainly not what the Federal President meant, but that’s how many people will read it. Just – what does he mean? Steinmeier continued: “We didn’t ask important questions.” As there were:
“What could we have done better, despite all the uncertainty and the force of the unknown pathogen? Where have we been too strict and perhaps overcautious, and where have we been too careless and careless? Which groups and parts of the population suffered particularly from the measures? Who needed more help and support? Where have we waited too long to take action?”
Were these questions really not asked? Haven’t they been answered over and over again, some over 70 times? Isn’t it clear that we would have needed better cohort studies, earlier studies on the psychological and social consequences of the pandemic and infection control measures? A good social culture of discussion and criticism early on? Less meticulously differentiated bans on contact, certainly no ban on sitting on a park bench or arbitrary restrictions on the number of participants at funerals? Isn’t it sufficiently researched and known that the old people in the homes, who were often protected against their will, the children and young people as well as people in socially difficult circumstances particularly suffered from the measures? That they needed more support, as did the nursing staff, who to date have not received the upgrade that was often promised? And that, for example, people waited too long in the second wave, which contributed to the high number of deaths at the end of 2020?
Under what conditions, with what resources, and with what specific mandate would an “honest reappraisal” that was put on the political track really create added value? For example, compared to the report of the expert commission according to Section 5 (9) IfSG? Who even read their report? And who should provide the framework for an “honest reappraisal” and who should give advice? An order for BIPAM? For a new commission? For a consortium of scientific institutions?