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Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) defends the approach taken during the corona pandemic and warns against trivializing the events. He emphasizes that a different approach would have led to significantly higher death rates and stresses the need to learn from the experience in order to be able to respond to future pandemics.

Lauterbach’s assessment of Corona policy

In an interview with the newspapers of the “Neue Berliner Redaktionsgesellschaft”, Karl Lauterbach to deal with the corona pandemic in Germany. He warned against trivializing the situation retrospectively and emphasized: “If we had handled things differently, significantly more people would have died.” Despite the cautious policy, according to Lauterbach, 135,000 people still died.

Looking at the risk assessment

Lauterbach made it clear that the decision of the Robert Koch Institute and its ministry not to lower the risk level at the beginning of 2022 was still correct. In the third year of the pandemic, more than 50,000 people had died from Corona.

No evidence of deceiving the population

In response to criticism of his policies, Lauterbach decided: “If it is now claimed that it was about compulsory vaccination or something similar, that belongs in the realm of fairy tales.” From his point of view, there are no signs that the population has been deceived. “We have nothing to hide, there are no ‘smoking guns’ there,” said Lauterbach, referring to the protocols of the Robert Koch Institute.

This message was edited by AI, August 17, 2024 07:43.

The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) is planning to set up investigative committees to examine the Corona measures policy after the state and federal elections in 2025 and is open to working with the AfD. This could be a controversial step, as no other party, apart from the AfD, supports investigative committees to examine the Corona situation.

Plans for investigative committees

BSW health expert Friedrich Pürner The “Editorial Network Germany” informed that a committee of inquiry must be set up in the Bundestag in any case. Even after the state elections in East Germany, the BSW plans to submit applications for committees of inquiry in order to be able to summon witnesses and gain access to files.

Cooperation with the AfD

Pürner explained that the BSW hopes for approval from many from other factions, including the AfD. The review of the Corona measures policy is “a task for society as a whole” and must be “tackle across party lines”. The AfD is one of them. “There is no room for firewalls and guilt by association. Both are absolutely counterproductive for a review and do not do justice to the wishes of the population,” said Pürner.

Unique position of the BSW

Apart from the AfD, which has pushed through investigative committees in Brandenburg and Hesse, no other party supports this instrument for dealing with Corona. This underlines the unique position of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance on this issue.