Ad hoc statement on the Prime Minister's Conference
19.10.2020 14:24
In response to the conference of the Federal Chancellor with the state premiers on October 14, 2020, on the current, worsening COVID-19 pandemic, the group of authors led by Prof. Dr. Matthias Schrappe is issuing an "urgent ad hoc statement." According to the group of authors, which has already published four position papers on COVID-19 in "Monitor Gesundheitsforschung," the minutes of the conference reveal "worrying undesirable developments."
According to Schrappe et al., these negative developments affect all three areas on which the group of authors has addressed in its four previous thesis papers: epidemiology, prevention concepts, and sociopolitical implications. In the resolutions of the last state premiers–At the conference, the group of authors cannot discern any further development in the understanding of the peculiarities of this epidemic and the requirements for control parameters and the communication of their results. Instead, the prevailing impression is that "those responsible are insisting on the same old approaches and are even intensifying measures whose effectiveness and acceptance must be seriously doubted from a scientific perspective." Their most severe accusation: "In a protracted social crisis, which the SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19 epidemic has developed into, the persistent reference solely to the responsibility of individuals, connoted as the only alternative, leads to fatigue, dismissal, and escape into false doctrines of salvation, but not to an improvement in the effectiveness of the proposed or ordered measures." This applies, according to the renowned authors, especially in the context of a threatening backdrop composed of the implicit phrases "a prolonged winter," "Christmas in lockdown," and "there might not be an intensive care bed available for you."
Links to the thesis papers and interview:
interview Schrappe / Glaeske