Main Photograph 07.08.2024 – by snapshot-photography/F.Boillot – The RKI protocols suggest: The country’s highest epidemic authority was above all a mouthpiece for politics.
This is an Q & A interview by journalist, Stefan Rehder, from the Roman Catholic Tagespost, or Daily Post, a German newspaper, with Stefan Homburg, emeritus professor of public finance at the Leibniz University of Hanover.
Sen Ed Dangeorous Globe, Tony Broomfield
The Robert Koch Institute is the highest disease control authority in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the article is headed …
RKI files: “The public and the courts were clearly lied to”
“The Robert Koch Institute implemented whatever irrelevant and arbitrary guidelines came from the ministry when it came to Corona”, says university professor and critic of the measures Stefan Homburg.
Q Professor Homburg, you are one of the few people who have already read the completely redacted protocols of the Corona crisis team of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), which the journalist Aya Velázquez made public on July 23. What new insights have you gained from reading them?
A The most important point is undoubtedly that the risk assessment was not carried out by the RKI on a scientific basis, but was dictated by politics. In March 2020, the Federal Ministry of Health instructed the RKI to set the risk level to “high” in order to justify lockdowns, school closures and more. Later, the ministry repeatedly rejected requests from the RKI to lower the risk level. In 2023, the RKI learned from the newspaper that Federal Health Minister Lauterbach had declared the pandemic over.
Q The RKI is the highest disease control authority in the Federal Republic of Germany. One might think that the task of the expertise gathered there should be to develop recommendations for action for politicians on the basis of the available scientific data in order to steer Germany through the pandemic in the best possible way. You claim that such an interpretation is wrong. What is the correct one?
A The correct interpretation is undoubtedly that politicians gave the RKI detailed instructions. According to the minutes, the RKI even carried out a legal check to see whether the politicians’ orders were legal. The answer was: yes.
Q What evidence do you base your view on?
A Evidence includes, on the one hand, the protocols published by the RKI itself, and, on the other hand, the complete and unredacted protocols received from the whistleblower. We also have the RKI’s entire email traffic on Corona and several gigabytes of additional material such as letters, presentations or internal working papers.
Q At the press conference where you and Aya Velázquez presented the RKI files, there was also talk of a missing protocol. What is this all about?
A Based on a court order, the RKI had published protocols up to April 2021 itself, but the protocol from May 9, 2020 was missing. We have now found this protocol in the mass of data; it was incorrectly filed. We do not know whether this was a coincidence or intentional.
Q What is it (The missing protocol) about?
A It’s about trivialities, so I think this protocol was an oversight. More critical is the protocol from March 25, 2020, the original version of which was subsequently embellished. The RKI only published the embellished version. This could constitute the offense of forgery.
Q The protocols are said to have been leaked to Aya Velázquez by a whistleblower and, unlike the blacked-out protocols that the magazine “Multipolar” had sued for release, cover the years 2020 to 2023, and thus the entire period of the pandemic. They also enable a comparison of two federal governments and their health ministers, Jens Spahn (CDU) and Karl Lauterbach (SPD). Have you been able to identify any significant differences in government action based on the protocols?
A Federal ministers Spahn and Lauterbach both gave irrelevant instructions to the RKI and forced the institute to mislead the public. One difference in the administration is that Spahn used the RKI to enforce harmful lockdowns and school closures, while Lauterbach used the RKI to build up strong vaccination pressure.
Q Speaking of vaccination pressure: One issue that still concerns many people is the effectiveness and safety of vaccines. What did you find on this in the RKI crisis team’s minutes?
A At the beginning of 2021, the RKI learned of the serious side effects of the AstraZeneca vaccine but did nothing to stop it. Later, there was hardly any information on this topic because pharmacovigilance was the responsibility of the Paul Ehrlich Institute, not the RKI, while Lauterbach used the RKI to build up strong pressure for vaccination.
Q There is a lot of outrage on social media about Spahn’s talk of the “pandemic of the unvaccinated”. The minutes state: “From a technical point of view, this is not correct, the entire population contributes. Should this be taken up in communication?” It goes on to say: “Minister says this at every press conference, probably deliberately, cannot really be corrected.” Sounds pretty devout, doesn’t it?
A This subservience permeates the entire 4,000 pages. The RKI implemented whatever irrelevant and arbitrary instructions came from the ministry.
Q The fact that there was no “pandemic of the unvaccinated” also means that the RKI had to know that the vaccines did not provide “sterile immunity”, i.e. they did not provide effective protection against infection, but at best against severe cases. Nevertheless, for a long time it was said that those who got vaccinated were protecting themselves and others. How do you explain that?
A The decisive factor is the lack of protection against transmission or protection of others, because compulsory vaccination or indirect coercion through 2G/3G can only be based on this. Since not even Pfizer had claimed protection of others in the approval study, everyone knew that there was none. The public and especially the courts were clearly lied to on this point in order to maximize the pressure to vaccinate.
Q The leaked protocols allow a partial review of the Corona management. But the RKI crisis team was not the only committee in which the course was set. There were the meetings of Chancellors Merkel and Scholz with the state premiers, the German Ethics Council and later also the Corona Expert Council. Wouldn’t a Bundestag study commission, half of which would consist of MPs and experts as well as opponents and supporters of the measures, be a committee that could take a look at the minutes of the other committees and thus contribute to a complete review?
A I am firmly against a commission of inquiry and even more so against citizens’ councils. Because the RKI protocols show concrete and immense misconduct, a Bundestag investigative committee with quasi-judicial powers is the only right instrument.
Q However, there seems to be little sympathy for such a body in politics. As a long-time political advisor, do you see any alternatives?
A Because almost all political parties participated in the failed lockdown and vaccination policy, they want to sweep the issue under the carpet. Therefore, the public, the judiciary and science must undertake the investigation.
Photo: Wikimedia | Prof. Dr. rer. pol. Stefan Homburg, born in 1961, emeritus professor of public finance at the Leibniz University of Hanover, studied economics, mathematics and philosophy
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