Now one of the chief reminders says it too: During the corona pandemic Germany’s schools would never have had to be closed! The outgoing President of the Robert Koch Institute admitted that Lothar Wieler (61)now in an interview with “Zeit”.
“There was never just one alternative: either keep a few dead or keep schools open,” said Wieler, according to the preliminary report.
“The existing scope has not been considered with the necessary care, calm and objectivity throughout the pandemic,” said the RKI boss. It is a late confirmation for all those who criticized the school lockdown at the height of the pandemic.
“Not well communicated”
However, Wieler does not want to recognize his own mistakes in the school closure issue. The RKI had “always made recommendations that could have allowed schools and daycare centers to run, albeit with effort”. Means: From his point of view, politics was solely responsible for the closures.
Nevertheless, even at the beginning of the pandemic, he “did not communicate optimally,” Wieler admitted. “I should have had more conversations to better understand these complex events. I didn’t do that enough.”
Wieler announced two weeks ago that he wanted to resign as RKI boss. He is resigning from his post on April 1st.
Also ex-minister of health Jens Spahn (42, CDU) had already admitted in his book “We will have to forgive each other a lot”: “In retrospect, I think that the general school closure in all sixteen federal states would not have been necessary, at least back then, in March 2020.”
They regularly appeared together in front of the press during the corona pandemic: RKI boss Lothar Wieler (left) and the then Minister of Health Jens Spahn (CDU)
But the fact is, despite all the excuses, the schools were closed at the time and did not return to regular operations for months. Despite all criticism from science!
Experts said as early as 2020: Children are not a pandemic driver
︎ The so-called Heidelberg study came to the conclusion in June 2020: “Children are less infected than their parents and therefore, as far as one can tell, certainly not to be regarded as drivers of the infection”, as Professor Klaus-Michael Debatin ( 70), director of the children’s clinic at the University of Ulm.
▶︎ Virologist Hendrik Streeck (45, Bonn University Hospital) also made it clear in November 2020: “Smaller children are not the drivers of the pandemic.” They would not become infected as often, and would not pass on the virus as strongly.
︎ In May 2020, several medical societies demanded in a joint statement: “Daycare centers, kindergartens and elementary schools should be reopened as soon as possible” – and “unrestricted”.
At that time, Karl Lauterbach (59, SPD/not yet a minister) promptly contradicted: “The pediatricians would mean well,” but unfortunately it was “wrong that children are of little importance for the pandemic”.