A book tries to put order to what has become and what should have become of today’s experience.

It’s the only sure thing.

The processing of experiences from the pandemic will occupy governments, politicians, scientists and sociologists for a long time to come.

It was an unprecedented period when expert epidemiologists directed government decisions with measures unheard of for societies accustomed to living in conditions of freedom. It is also certain that confinement measures have left their mark not only on mental health, but also on the economy. A shining example is the hasty purchases of FFP2 masks in the first phase of the pandemic, which cost the German taxpayer 2.3 billion euros, an amount that has not yet been paid and is another burden on the budget for 2025. The Minister of Health at the time was Jens Spahn from the Christian Democratic Party. Who was called this week to the Parliament’s Budget Committee to explain why the suppliers have not yet been paid. The matter has escalated in the courts and will drag on for a long time. A similar discussion took place in the plenary.

Confinement and other excesses

Processing the scientific and psychological footprint of the pandemic is even more difficult. But there is one certainty. It will not be the last pandemic the international community will have to deal with. And the question remains, what have we been taught? And are our lessons enough to deal with the next pandemic? A book that has just been released tries to codify the experience. The author is Christian Drosten, a professor of epidemiology, director of the Epidemiological Institute at the famous Charité University Clinic in Berlin. He has been likened to the German Tsiodra. His words had and still have weight. But it also caused enmity. In his book with the questionable title Alles Überstanden? (Did we get through it all?) looks back on the not-so-distant years of forced incarceration with the help of respected journalist Georg Mascolo, with positions of responsibility in newspapers and serious German magazines. Their discussion focuses on the political management of the crisis, the role of science and the media, which decisions were excessive, which were taken too late, but also the crucial question, where did this terrible and terrible Sars-CoV-2 virus come from anyway . And they attempt to provide some answers. “It won’t be the last discussion,” this is perhaps the book’s safest conclusion.

But let’s try to sort out the German expert’s views on controversial policy decisions such as school closures. Drosten points out the emotional charge of the debate and that the focus was not so much on the consequences for the children’s education as on their parents not being able to go to work after the children stayed at home. The emotional charge of the debate was fueled by a broader issue, the distribution of the burdens of incarceration. “The phrase ‘everyone is equal in the face of disease’ couldn’t be further from the truth,” says Drosten. “Social injustices became more apparent in this period.” Elsewhere he explains in an interesting way why the relatively mild development of the spring of 2020 gave way to a severe wave in the fall. “Because you don’t see the diseases you prevent and then you’re blind to the ones that would occur without the restrictive measures.”

Tormenting question: Where did the virus come from?

But the most basic question that may never be answered is how this virus came about. “For me, the question of the origin of the coronavirus is one of the great scientific mysteries of our time,” Mascolo says for his part. “Did nature or man open this Pandora’s box in Wuhan?” This question has The German journalist also criticized China’s approach to the pandemic, which he believes is not going to work out its own handling of the crisis , but it is also missing in Germany. In Sweden, for example, the final report was filed in February 2022. And Britain is following the same path with a “rigorous treatment” of the way the pandemic is managed. Christian Drosten was a leading figure during the pandemic in Germany.As an adviser to the government he even left his own mark on German pandemic management policy. Now he appears differently and maintains that he has always been “politically neutral”.

“Would you put yourself through such overexposure again?” Mascolo asks him. “Millions of people were at risk, should I be left out just because I ate wood?” answers Drosten equally questioningly. “In a similar situation, if I were one of the few experts who had something important to say, I would again take responsibility,” he concludes diplomatically. So don’t shoot epidemiologists? We will see. The dialogic way of writing the book makes the reading fascinating. The two authors in many places try to put things in their place for decisions, myths, misconceptions, impressions. Will the conclusions help in a future pandemic? “Blindly drawing conclusions about other viruses of the future is not possible,” says Drosten.

DPA, Bild, Berliner Zeitung