Dispute with Helmholtz and Lauterbach researchers: how Boris Palmer becomes vulnerable to Illner again – politics

Tübingen Mayor Boris Palmer once again caused controversy over the ZDF program “Maybrit Illner” on Thursday night. Palmer had received a lot of criticism recently when he said in a television interview: “We can save people in Germany who would be dead in six months anyway.”

He reiterated this statement about ZDF – and quickly faced off: Helmholtz investigator Michael Meyer-Hermann criticized Palmer for this. The calculations showed that “most people who died of Corona would have had an average of nine years to live.”

Meyer-Herrmann was probably referring to a calculation made by the NDR, which had shown that each Covid-19 death had lost an average of nine years of life. This is in line with the results of a study by the University of Glasgow, which found based on data from patients from Wales, Scotland and Italy that, on average, eleven years of life had been lost to the dead.

Palmer brushed aside the argument with “I think it’s wrong.” Meyer-Herrmann only had answers that these are facts and not opinions.

In the television interview, he explained his controversial statement about concern for children at risk of poverty, especially in developing countries, whose lives were threatened by the economic consequences of confinement. “According to the UN, the global destruction of the global economy means that the resulting poverty shock will cost an additional million lives this year,” Palmer said.

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The United Nations Children’s Fund had pointed to the growing danger, but Palmer did not correctly cite UNICEF managing director Christian Schneider. He had said in mid-April that the pandemic “was an existential danger to millions of children and their families in fragile states, poor communities and regions in crisis.”

They would have little opportunity to protect themselves from infection, and often would not have access to medical help. Schneider did not say that the “poverty shock” described by Palmer really costs a million children their lives.

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Palmer also complained at ZDF on Thursday nightthat many critics of the drastic daily constraints in the coronavirus crisis are being ignored and sometimes slandered. This reminds him of the refugee crisis in 2015, when debates over the entry of hundreds of thousands of migrants stalled with a “moralizing lack of alternatives,” he said.

Meyer-Herrmann also contradicted this, saying that Germany could be proud of the flat course of the infection curve. The underused hospital beds only showed that everything had been done correctly. The fact that protests increase as relaxation takes effect is an example of the “prevention paradox”: if you have taken enough precautionary measures, you will have to hear later that the exaggerated situation does not materialize.

Palmer opposes Lauterbach

“The more we relax, the longer the easy oppression phase of the economy,” said Meyer-Hermann, who, together with his team at the Helmholtz Institute for Infection Research and the Ifo Institute for Economic Research, are preparing a study on the economic consequences of relaxation measures. Has.

Meyer-Hermann believes that people feel that the measures are directed against them: misunderstandings, in particular that people in livelihood need a world in which the virus has been so delayed that “we no longer have to be afraid “

Palmer also accused the virologist.they just wanted to reduce the number of people infected and would see no other medical and financial costs. “This is also unfair,” wrote health expert Karl Lauterbach on Twitter. Where you are right.

Not until thursday Christian Drosten had said on the NDR podcast that there is a “golden midpoint” when it comes to balancing health protection and economic interests. Drosten referred to the study by the Ifo Institute and the Helmholtz Center. Accordingly, a careful and gradual opening process can minimize financial costs without jeopardizing medical goals.

Finally, Palmer also went directly to the SPD politician, Lauterbach.. He accused him that all the people who did not follow his advice were responsible for the deaths of 100,000 people. “This is unfair and not true,” Lauterbach replied on Twitter. “I am, unlike him, against locking up sick and elderly people in the economy for years.” (with dpa)