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Virologist Christian Drosten is currently saying things that make many Germans go to sleep. It also says many things that anger a large part of the population, because they mean that everyday life in Germany will be different for a time before the crown crisis. Most virologists should be less surprised by their evaluations. But two weeks ago, Drosten said something that probably even worried his colleagues: “I receive death threats.”
In an interview with the British “Guardian,” the 48-year-old described how he received threatening emails as a result of his public statements and recommendations about the crown pandemic: “For many Germans, I am the bad guy who paralyzes the economy.” A survey by the University Medical Center Eppendorf in Hamburg (UKE), the Society for Virology (GfV) and the University of Tübingen shows that around a third of the virologists surveyed currently see freedom of expression in science threatened.
It was not explicitly asked whether this evaluation was accompanied by the increasing polarization around the Drosten person. “But some virologists seem to avoid publicly speaking and become vulnerable,” says Michael Schindler, head of the research section on molecular virology at the University of Tübingen and one of the study’s directors.
Is the restriction of fundamental rights proportional?
The survey asked 178 participants who came mainly from the fields of virology, immunology and hygiene, but also from internal medicine and intensive care. A total of around 1,100 virologists are registered with the GfV. In early April there was already a survey interviewing around 200 experts. The current survey was based on the results and wanted to include some new developments, such as the mask requirement, Schindler said. “Now that there are more and more protests against the measures and the restriction of fundamental rights, I was interested to know if my colleagues consider that the government’s approach is proportionate,” says Schindler.
The result according to the survey: around 77 percent of the respondents consider that the restrictions on freedom of movement and assembly, as well as the prohibition of contact, are quite proportional. The vast majority of virologists and medical professionals surveyed (89 percent) consider it reasonable to ban large-scale events. The spacing rule is also considered useful (87 percent).
However, compared to the first survey a month ago, overall approval for all current measures of social distancing declined: about half of the participants (51 percent) consider the current measures to be helpful. In the first survey, 81 percent considered these measures to be adequate.
A noticeable change in mood was evident in the assessment of the return to public life: although a month ago, 17 percent of respondents thought that restoring public and economic life made sense, 63 percent of virologists and medical professionals now said so. They agreed to wear mouth and nose protection in public.
Most do not seem to know the benefits of masks.
In this context, the response to the sensitivity of using nose and mouth protection in public transport, shops and workplaces seems paradoxical: 70 percent of respondents agreed with this measure, so 73 percent also stated that the obligation to wear a mask involves the risk of being wrong. Safety weighing when mouth-nose protection is not handled properly.
“I was surprised that fewer respondents are aware of scientific analyzes of the effectiveness of protecting the mouth and nose against a viral infection, but that they mostly support the requirement to wear a mask,” says study leader Schindler. “It seems to me this could have been a hunch.” The fact that masks help cannot be clearly derived from the current data situation. “When in doubt, the benefits are compared to the potential drawbacks. And because of this, a lot of my colleagues obviously conclude that wearing a mask at least doesn’t hurt,” Schindler said.
This thesis is supported by the question of the scientific basis of the effectiveness of oral coatings. Only 29 percent answered “yes” to the question if the participants knew of scientific literature showing that surgical masks protect against Sars-CoV-2. And only 12 percent of respondents apparently know of literature that refutes the protective effect of these masks. Therefore, more than half of the respondents do not seem to know any literature on the subject.
The vast majority (89 percent) of respondents indicated the number of new infections as important parameters for the decision to relax current restrictions. Almost the majority (86 percent) see the availability of ventilators, intensive care beds and protective clothing as an important indicator, and 75 percent cited the number of reproductions as an important factor in deciding whether to loosen the measures (read more about the importance of the reproduction rate here).
According to the survey, 67 percent of respondents are satisfied with the crisis management of the federal government. 61 percent are in favor of crisis management at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), which is notable after the institution has come under fire several times in recent weeks, most recently when it decided to suspend its weekly press sessions .
According to the survey, media coverage is also seen increasingly critically: although a month ago experts still viewed media coverage to a large extent (80 percent) as objective and appropriate, this approval is now it’s down to 59 percent. So many media outlets titled “sensationalists.”
According to Schindler, fears about scientific freedom of expression are also related to evaluating the reports. “It is also up to the media to correctly quote experts and not take statements out of context,” says the virologist. However, the number of respondents who were encouraged by their employer not to comment publicly on Sars-CoV-2 are low in the survey (14 and 10 percent). More said they were afraid of professional disadvantage if their opinion did not correspond to the “majority opinion” (19 percent).
But that is precisely what is important, says Schindler: “We need debates on different topics and constructive discourse,” he says. “These must be handled by experts from various disciplines. The task of virologists in this mixed situation is the critical analytical assessment of the virus, its risk of infection, and its pathogenicity, especially compared to other virus infections.”
