Dhe virologist Christian Drosten sees the danger that the traffic light government will not draw appropriate conclusions from the corona pandemic because of the war in Ukraine. In the FAZ podcast for Germany on Friday, he spoke of “clear signals” that “the research budget in Germany will be reduced starting with the next budget” due to additional budgetary burdens.
Drosten, who heads the Institute for Virology at the Charité Clinic in Berlin and is applying for research funding himself, sees Germany falling behind. In America, “very large programs” are now being launched for pandemic or vaccine research. Drosten praised the policies of former Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU). She decided “in the last economic crisis” that no savings would be made on research, “because that will save us in the future”. He cited the handling of monkeypox as evidence that the structures in this country had not changed enough. “The next time a possible pandemic problem like this comes up, we absolutely need to register patients in clinical observation studies immediately, and we need control groups right away.” In the case of monkeypox, he “didn’t see too much improvement there”.
In the fight against Corona, Germany “performed best in the first wave”. After that, “artificial controversies” in the media caused a loss of trust and prevented efficient countermeasures. In addition, Germany has a “federalism problem”. The “special problems in Bavaria, Saxony, Thuringia” during the delta wave in autumn 2021 are “a thing of this federalism”.
The RKI warns of increased infection pressure in summer due to the spread of the omicron sublines BA.4 and BA.5. But Drosten said that with a view to the summer, he “didn’t have too many concerns at the moment”. From early autumn, however, you have to expect a lot of lost work. “We may no longer have the problem in the intensive care unit, but simply with all employers,” said Drosten: “They will notice that, and they will notice it for an agonizingly long time in the coming winter.”