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Berlin – Scientists have had the floor since 5:30 pm at the expert summit, in which politicians gather information on the current situation between Chancellor Angela Merkel (66, CDU) and the country’s 16 leaders in the run-up to the Prime Minister’s Conference.
Everyone who will also be at tomorrow’s conference was connected, as well as other politicians, about 80 participants in total. Instead of the expected 120 minutes, the change finally took more than three hours.
According to an email that the Chancellery sent to the participants in the morning (BILD is available), in addition to the head of the RKI, Professor Lothar Wieler (59) and the main virologist, Professor Christian Drosten (48, Charité), have been invited six other scientists.
BILD introduces Corona experts and reveals to you exclusively what procedure they advised politicians to follow during the meeting.
Prof. Rolf Apweiler
The biochemist (57) studied in Heidelberg and is now co-director of the “European Institute of Bioinformatics” (part of the “European Molecular Biology Laboratory” based in Heidelberg, hence the abbreviation EMBL-EBI). Apweiler conducts research in Hinxton, UK, near Cambridge.
Apweiler was also concerned about the mutation of the virus and spoke about the experiences that had been had in the United Kingdom: “During the national shutdown (from 5 November to 2 December 2020) other variants decreased by around 50 percent, but the Great Britain variant rose unnoticed by 200 to 400 percent. ” This variant of the virus creates six to eight times more cases per month than other variants.
▶ His recommendations: Abrupt closure (school closings, mandatory home office), vaccination as quickly as possible, rapid development of sequencing and bioinformatic analysis capabilities.
And he made it clear: “If political will and determination are lacking, the best testing and monitoring system and the COVID-19 genome surveillance system will not help.”
Prof. Cornelia Betsch
The 41-year-old psychologist received her doctorate in 2006 in decision-making through intuition and reflection. In 2017 she became a professor of health communication at the University of Erfurt, where she and a colleague developed a master’s degree in health communication. She became particularly well known through interviews and her research on opposition to vaccination.
He explains the psychological view of the event: “Despite the good acceptance of individual protection measures, psychological factors make us make exceptions. The relevant knowledge is still lacking and it is becoming even more important due to the mutation. “
She also says: “Pandemic fatigue leads to sluggishness: relevant knowledge does not spread as quickly, behavior reacts more slowly (…)”.
▶ Your suggestion: We should talk about the pandemic differently than we did before. The “fight against pandemics should be more in everyone’s own interest in a community social solution.”
Prof. Melanie Brinkmann
Photo: dpa
“data-zoom-src =” https://bilder.bild.de/fotos/niedersachsen-braunschweig-virologin-melanie-brinkmann-estand-am-helmholtz-zentrum-fuer-infektionsfor-94c1a0b52e844ab5a3e5159e8076d98c-74957772. bild.jpg “/> Lower Saxony, Braunschweig: Virologist Melanie Brinkmann is here at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research HZIPhoto: dpa
The 47-year-old has been teaching at the Technical University of Braunschweig since July 2018 and is a professor at the Institute for Genetics (focus: infections and active substances). During his doctoral thesis he studied herpes viruses and later worked at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research, among others.
In today’s panel of experts, he made it clear: “It is the most critical moment of the pandemic.” The reason: “The new variant is in the country and it is a natural law that will prevail.” It was like the virus was back on. Put on a rocket suit.
▶ The following applies: “The sooner we act, the less damage we do. If we don’t act now, there is a danger that 2021 will be worse than 2020 ”. The good news is that from spring 2020 we will know what to do. Since control is only possible through low incidences, the population must be convinced “that we have to go to zero”. Also for the following reason: Vaccination will only help at the end of the year.
To criticize Germany for not looking for British-style mutations, for example, Brinkmann replied: “All the surveillance in Britain, which is great, didn’t help you either. It will take the British months to get out of there. “
Prof. Christian Drosten
Virologist Drosten was a professor at the University of Bonn from 2007 to 2017. Since 2017 he has held various positions at the Berlin Charité and is director of the virology department of the largest laboratory in Europe, “Labor Berlin”.
The 48-year-old defended coronavirus verification for mutations and the like: “Germany is not bad at sequencing!” He also called for an intra-European genome analysis exchange.
Prof. Michael Meyer-Hermann
After studying physics, mathematics and philosophy, the 54-year-old did his doctorate in Frankfurt on theoretical elementary particle physics. He created working groups on systems immunology in Dresden, Oxford and Frankfurt. Meyer-Hermann has been head of the department of Systems Immunology at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research in Braunschweig since 2010. One of his research areas: the immune system.
Meyer-Hermann warned at the summit: if schools and stores are opened now, the incidence of 50 will not be reached. Then it switches between 50 and 100. “That is the most expensive strategy for the economy,” he clarifies.
If the lockdown were to last until the end of February, it could say 10.02. reach the incidence of 50, and this would likely decrease further. Due to the new mutations, “he still doesn’t want to recommend this scenario.”
▶ You have to prepare for the fact that the new variants will spread “and then the current measures will no longer help. What then only helps is a complete closure of the company. With this “we would have an incidence of 10 at the beginning of March.” His demand: “We have to act before the variant spreads.”
Prof. Kai nagel
The Cologne physicist (55) deals, among other things, with mobility research and transport system planning. Tomorrow’s MPK will also discuss the use of local public transport and the effects it has on the infection rate. Nagel uses cell phone data to develop models and shows the relationship between people’s movement patterns and the number of infections.
A week ago he spoke at the “Daily mirrorOn his work on the pandemic: “Using mobile data, we can immediately see when activity drops and incorporate this into our model. If, in extreme cases, everyone stayed home, the virus would no longer be transmitted, at least not outside one’s own home. “
Prof. Gérard Krause
The 56-year-old is a doctor and worked in Heidelberg in 1993 in the fields of internal medicine, tropical medicine, hospital hygiene and epidemiology. From 2000 to 2013 he was head of department and department at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin. After becoming a professor, in 2011 he became a professor at the Hannover School of Medicine and head of the epidemiology department at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research, Braunschweig.
For example, on the issue of exit restrictions and stricter measures, he recently showed differentiation: a week ago he told “Deutschlandfunk” that this “possibly” had an effect, “the spread of the total numbers, the cases in the total population “could be reduced.
BUT: “You always have to think and consider undesirable effects. And so you should not be under the illusion that this can only significantly reduce deaths, because they take place in a kind of microcosm, that is, in homes for the elderly and for the elderly, where a confinement does not work per se. I can turn off all the buses and still life takes place in nursing homes ”. That is why there must be better protection for nursing homes.
