Corona pandemic
Lauterbach: RKI protocols are largely de-blackened
“I would simply like to avoid giving the slightest impression that the Robert Koch Institute is deliberately hiding something…”: Health Minister Karl Lauterbach. photo
© Federico Gambarini/dpa
The call for a review of state policy to contain the corona pandemic is becoming louder. Health Minister Lauterbach is in favor of more transparency
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has called for more transparency in the protocols that have become public Robert Koch Institute (RKI) from the initial phase of the corona pandemic. “Yesterday I arranged for the protocols to be blacked out as much as possible,” said the SPD politician on Deutschlandfunk.
It should be checked again to see what absolutely needs to be made illegible. “This means that the Robert Koch Institute must now ask permission from everyone who is named in the minutes or whose interests are mentioned so that the redaction can take place.” That will take a while, “maybe four weeks,” but then a much clearer variant can be presented.
A few days ago, the online magazine “Multipolar” made public the partly redacted minutes of the RKI crisis team from January 2020 to April 2021. As a result, calls for a review of state policy to contain the corona pandemic with tens of thousands of deaths in Germany became louder.
Lauterbach for “maximum transparency”
Lauterbach said again that he had nothing to do with the redactions of the minutes. According to the Freedom of Information Act, the Robert Koch Institute had to black out certain names and also black out certain things that affected third parties. He is for maximum transparency. “I just want to avoid giving the slightest impression that the Robert Koch Institute is deliberately hiding something or that there is even political interference on the part of the federal government, that the Robert Koch Institute is not publishing things here.”
When asked what a review of the Corona measures in Germany should look like, Lauterbach did not want to commit. “If there is a parliamentary review, Parliament must also decide how this is to be done.” Overall, there needs to be more transparency “so that more conspiracy theories don’t build up around that time,” said the minister.