Demand for reappraisal: Politicians criticize Corona measures: “I was stunned by the stubbornness”
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Four years after the outbreak of the pandemic, the focus is increasingly on coming to terms with it. Politicians today view some of the decisions made back then critically. Virologist Schmidt-Chanasit makes a clear judgment.
Lockdowns, contact bans, mandatory vaccinations. Many, sometimes controversial, measures were implemented during the corona pandemic. Politicians and experts now want to review these decisions and are quite critical of them towards “t-online”.
Expert on Corona measures: “A lot of things are unforgivable”
virologist Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit criticizes some of the political decisions. During the pandemic he was an advisor to Hamburg politics and was more critical of lockdowns and similar repressive measures than many others.
“The fact that, given the beginning of the pandemic in spring 2020, decisions were made that in retrospect cannot always be described as appropriate is forgivable. “But a lot of what was decided politically based on science after this initial shock is unforgivable,” the expert explains to “t-online”.
The virologist includes school and daycare closures among other things. But Schmidt-Chanasit admits that he was also particularly affected by the “psychological and social isolation of older people”.
CDU Prime Minister: “I was stunned at the stubbornness at the time”
Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer is particularly critical of the exclusion of some views during the pandemic. “I was insulted by other parties when I tried to talk to critical people during the Corona period. It was clear to me that in a democracy there can’t be just one opinion,” said the CDU politician on “t-online”.
Kretschmer also assesses the development of the Corona measures negatively. “The longer the protective measures lasted, the more wrong they became.” The cooperation with Health Minister Karl Lauterbach was not good.
“The sectoral vaccination requirement was well-intentioned, but turned out dramatically wrong. When this was clear at the beginning of 2022 and we asked the new Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach to abolish them together, he refused.” Kretschmer continued: “I was stunned at the time by the stubbornness and the refusal to acknowledge realities .”
FDP politician: Exclusion was “one of the worst mistakes”
Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki questions some of the measures towards “t-online”. “One of the worst mistakes of the corona pandemic was the exclusion of other opinions,” said the FDP politician.
“Where differences of opinion are no longer seen as an enrichment but as a danger, human dignity is undermined,” Kubicki is certain.
Green Party spokesman: “Germany got through the pandemic well”
Green Party politician Janosch Dahmen Although it also sees failures and mistakes in politics, it rates the measures overall as a success. “Overall, Germany got through the pandemic well, given its very old population,” says the doctor at “t-online”.
But Dahmen also admits: “Of course there are things that, looking back, didn’t go well.” Children and young people were held too strictly responsible.
At the same time, the Green Party’s health policy spokesman believes that more lives could have been saved. “It is also true that we lost people’s lives unnecessarily in the second half of the pandemic due to loosening the restrictions too early or the wrong focus of measures.
SPD Prime Minister: “That affects us”
Prime Minister of Lower Saxony Stephan Weil assesses the measures as fundamentally correct. “Basically, especially at the beginning of the pandemic, it was possible to limit the number of deaths through consistent infection protection,” said the SPD politician on “t-online”.
But mistakes were also made. “The needs of children and young people, on the other hand, have not been sufficiently taken into account, as various studies have now shown. The fact that many old and sick people suffered from loneliness during the peak phases of Corona or sometimes even had to die alone is also concerning.”
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