Interview with Lothar Wieler: “I didn’t think it would be so divisive”

Lothar Wieler was one of the faces of the fight against the pandemic. In an interview with tagesschau.de The former president of the Robert Koch Institute doubts that politicians have so far only learned the right lessons from the pandemic.

tagesschau.de: The first lockdown began in Germany four years ago. Looking back now, what were the biggest lessons for you?

Lothar Wieler: The main lesson is certainly how capable this society is of solving big problems. In the first few months you noticed how incredibly solidarity people were and how they faced the challenges – even with unconventional solutions. Many became creative in finding solutions.

tagesschau.de: What are you thinking about specifically?

Wieler: There were these really great vaccination campaigns. The construction of the vaccination centers, the logistics of transferring intensive care patients – how everything was set up and worked in a very short time. The development of the Corona warning app is another example. Or the concepts used by students to keep schools open, including testing strategies.

tagesschau.de: That all sounds very positive. However, the Corona measures were always accompanied by a lot of criticism.

Wieler: That was only one side. On the other hand, we have to take a sober look at what structures exist in our country – and who really fulfilled their duties and responsibilities in the crisis situation.

Especially when it came to coordination and information sharing, this could have been planned better in advance: for example, which committees took on tasks at the state and federal political level. That didn’t go ideally. You can learn a lot from it.

“You have to look at some things critically”

tagesschau.de: In your opinion, how good was the interaction between politics, society and science?

Wieler: You have to look at a few things critically: The Robert Koch Institute had a national pandemic plan that was coordinated with all relevant institutions over years of work as a framework plan, which provided for certain institutions with tasks. It also described information channels so that coordinated action could be taken. In retrospect, you can see in the implementation that some information streams were simply not served at all, certain committees did not carry out their tasks at all, and new committees were even installed.

tagesschau.de: Which committee do you mean, for example?

Wieler: According to the pandemic plan, the “Prime Ministers’ Conference” did not even exist. There were other ways of making decisions. If you set up a completely new committee, you obviously have to ensure that the decision-makers – in this case the Prime Minister – at least have a uniform level of information.

“Establish clear rules beforehand”

tagesschau.de: It was sometimes noted in the press conferences that you were annoyed by uncoordinated measures taken by individual countries and that you also included politicians in your warnings.

Wieler: If the country leaders are to be the decision-makers again in the next crisis, they would have to have established clear rules beforehand about who informs them about what. And not like last time, when each of these people chose their own group of advisors relatively arbitrarily, without there being uniform qualification standards and election rules.

tagesschau.de: Are you alluding to the polyphony of the country leaders during the pandemic when it came to the appropriate measures?

Wieler: In a democracy there is always polyphony, which is one of its strengths. But the people who make such far-reaching decisions should, if possible, have the same level of knowledge.

tagesschau.de: At that time, the RKI was very committed to communicating current pandemic information. Why wasn’t that enough to bring the Prime Minister’s Conference to such a level of knowledge?

Wieler: The RKI has a clear legal mandate to inform the Chancellor, on the one hand, via the Federal Ministry of Health, and, on the other hand, the professional public and medical professionals. That was successful.

It is a shame if the impression arose that the weekly press conferences were the most important task. The RKI has created a large number of documents with recommendations as a basis for dealing with Covid patients as well as public health measures to contain the pandemic.

“There will always be such tendencies”

tagesschau.de: We have experienced a strong polarization of society during the pandemic. Groups that have not questioned vaccinations based on facts – or other corona measures. Did you imagine it would be so drastic before?

Wieler: I never thought it would be so divisive and intense. But such tendencies will always exist. There are people who deliberately spread misinformation. It’s hard to fight it. This can only be contrasted with professional, competent, calm objectivity.

tagesschau.de: From today’s perspective, could polarization have been prevented or reduced?

Wieler: What is important is a good level of education and institutions that people believe in. I am convinced that most Germans place great trust in the information from the RKI.

Of course there is also a scientific discourse – the question is how it is perceived by political decision-makers and the media and used for their own purposes. The interpretation of this information will therefore never be one-sided.

“Invest in competent institutions for the long term”

tagesschau.de: Have politicians already done their homework?

Wieler: It is important to invest long-term in competent institutions that you can trust in such situations. However, especially in Germany, you can see that the RKI is even being weakened, even though it has fulfilled its legal task to a large extent. This development will make it more difficult to pass on trustworthy information in the future.

tagesschau.de: What would be your advice to those who have exposed roles in a future pandemic crisis?

Wieler: That you don’t speculate so much, that you stay objective. And gives the responsible institutions and committees enough resources to carry out their tasks.

The interview was conducted by Corinna Emundts, tagesschau.de.