Drosten Speaks, Part 1

An Interview in the Swiss online magazine "Die Republik", 5 June 2021

While there’s a lot going on in Austria right now (and which I’ll get to in due time), today I’d like to briefly highlight a few of the absurdities that Christian Drosten—Germany’s de facto equivalent of Anthony Fauci—has said over the course of the past few months.

Why, you may ask, might such a trip down memory lane be instructive? Well, for starters, because of the arbitrary and outright illegal house arrest for ‘the unvaccinated’ the Austrian government introduced a few days ago (on which see here), but then there’s also the fact that Drosten appeared in one of Austria’s ‘free’ tabloid media earlier today (and we’ll get to this in a moment).

That said, let’s take a brief trip down memory lane and look at the most significant utterances of Germany’s most prominent advocate of Covid-related measures.

Earlier this year, Swiss magazine Die Republik (The Republic) featured a long interview with Drosten, conducted by Marie-José Kolly, Angela Richter, and Daniel Ryser, which was published online on 5 June 2021.

Entitled, ‘Herr Drosten, where did this virus come from?’, this is how the interview opens:

‘After more than a year of the pandemic, the end seems to be in sight, at least in Europe: More and more people are vaccinated or immune, the number of cases is falling. How does the man who played a decisive role in the discovery of the first Sars virus in 2003 look back on this pandemic?’

The origin of Drosten’s career is discussed first, which revolved around the original Sars-Coronavirus. The virologist was in Frankfurt to defend his own dissertation and received a few samples: ‘I applied the new method and it turned out that there were sequences from a coronavirus in there that was not yet known.’ Drosten et al. then got in touch with the CDC, did some cross-checking and—voilà, concluded the following:

‘Two patients who had never met, but who had both had an indirect epidemiological link to China, where the first outbreaks of this disease had been recorded, became ill in the same way from the same virus…the essential work was caried out within a week.’

The article then moves to discuss the Mers virus (2012) before touching on the current Coronavirus Crisis. Asked about whether or not he was ‘surprised’ by the appearance of Sars-Cov2, Drosten replied:

‘That a pandemic may occur is clear to anyone who works on viruses that jump from animals to humans. We had been working on Mers for several years and had seen: This virus has a toehold in the door. I was surprised by the current Sars-2 because I…yes, well, ultimately because until recently I believed in the naïve idea that the transitional host, which in the case of Sars-1 were Viverrids [a family of mammals, on which see here] and raccoon dogs [similarly, see here], that this is basically controlled by China.’

Moving on to the origins of Sars-Cov2, Drosten was adamant:

[Drosten:] ‘This idea [Wade’s article, dated 10 May 2021] of a research accident is extremely unlikely for me because it would be far too inconvenient. The idea of a malicious use of some intelligence operation somewhere is doubtful: if anything, such a thing would probably not come from the Wuhan Virology Institute, because this is a serious academic institute.

[Q:] What is the most plausible theory of origin for you?

[Drosten:] Carnivore farming. The fur industry.

[Q:] Why?

[Drosten:] I don’t have any evidence for that, except the clearly documented origin of Sars-1, and this is a virus of the same species. Viruses of the same species do the same things and often have the same origin. With Sars-1, it is scientifically documented that the transitional hosts were viverrids and raccoon dogs. That is certain. It is also certain that in China raccoon dogs are used on a large scale in the fur industry. If you buy a jacket anywhere with a fur collar, it is Chinese raccoon dogs, almost without exception. And now I can tell you that there are no studies in the scientific literature—none whatsoever—that shed light on the question of whether tanuki breeding stock or even other carnivore breeding stock, mink for example, carry this virus, Sars-2, in China.’

Leaving aside the unsubstantiated allegations (speculations) about the virus’s origins, Drosten then discusses the implications of the problematic investigations into these matters before the interviewers move on to ask about the vaccination campaign (my emphases).

‘[Q:] Summer is coming. The infection figures are falling, still at a high level, but they are falling almost continuously. Is the pandemic over here, with our vaccination rates [of c. 33% in Switzerland in early June]?

[Drosten:] What we are discussing here as a pandemic is, after all, an infectious disease spreading in such a way that one has to intervene, even if it is with lockdown measures, because there are no other measures. Now we have something else that reduces transmission much better than contact measures: vaccination. Both together and the warmer temperatures, which reduce transmissions by around 20 percent, mean that the numbers are going down. The trick now is not to reduce the measures too quickly, otherwise it will rebound exponentially. Instead, we need to balance it out with a certain sense of proportion. Of course, this has to be done by politicians, who do not act purely on the basis of science, but within a certain compromise of goals. If things continue like this, with a sense of proportion, and if we define the pandemic as we have just done, then, yes, the situation will be over.

[Q:] Then we will soon have herd immunity?

[Drosten:] Explain what you mean by that.

[Q:] Herd immunity is when, depending on the source, 70 or 80 or 90 percent have been vaccinated or have become immune through illness, and then the virus cannot circulate any further. This means that the non-vaccinated are also protected.

[Drosten:] I see. That will not work here… That was a misunderstanding right from the start, when it was understood that herd immunity means: 70 percent become immune--regardless of whether through vaccination or infection--and the remaining 30 percent will then no longer have any contact with the virus. That is simply not the case with this virus. All those who do not get vaccinated will become infected with Sars-2.’

Wait, there is more (still, my emphases), for below this by no means fear-inducing picture (/sarcasm), there is this gem:

‘[Drosten:] In a few years, one hundred percent of the population will either have been vaccinated or infected. Even after that, Sars-2 will still infect people, but it will no longer be the first infection. The initial infection is the bad thing, after that the disease it causes is less bad. It will probably become a kind of, yes, I will say: a cold.

[Q:] We’ve talked a lot about global vaccine inequality in recent weeks. As long as billions of people are not vaccinated, this virus can keep mutating. Or will it eventually run out of tricks?

[Drosten:] Probably the latter is the case.

[Q:] Why?

[Drosten:] To understand this, we need to talk about the immune system. There are different parts of the immune system that protect us from infection and from disease. Antibodies that protect us from infection wear off quickly and can only recognise the virus in a few places. So, we can get infected again relatively soon, especially if the virus has mutated in those very places.

[Q:] But?

[Drosten:] But we only get sick slightly. Because the part of the immune system that protects us from illness is much more enduring. The vaccination therefore probably actually protects us from getting seriously ill for several years. The so-called T-cells, which have been the subject of constant discussion for the past year, are responsible for this: Unlike the antibodies, they don’t really care if the virus mutates a little: T-cells can recognise it on the basis of many different characteristics. So, the virus can easily lose a few of its characteristics through mutations.

[Q:] So does this mean that the worries that the virus will mutate and that the current vaccinations will soon be worthless are not justified?

[Drosten:] What you can see: The difference between the virus variants that have appeared on different continents is not that big. From a virological point of view, there are good reasons to assume that Sars-2 does not have that much more in store than what it has been able to show us so far. Coronaviruses generally mutate more slowly and less strongly than, for example, influenza viruses, which actually have a much greater pandemic potential. So, a mutant variant that suddenly causes another severe illness in the majority of vaccinated people, I can’t imagine that.’

I could go on, but I think you all get the point: while there’s no problem with scholars and scientists making mistakes, these considerations by Germany’s Mr Coronavirus are, to put it mildly, troubling. There is (legitimate) criticism about the lacklustre performance of especially the German, Austrian, and Swiss governments during the downslope of (seasonal?) infection rates during late spring and summer 2021, but if that is true, this entire discussion morphs into a political clusterf***-up of gigantic proportions.

Still, it is quite obvious that Drosten’s statements had an outsized influence on the political decisions in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland to refrain from proposing whatever other measures in an effort to ‘re-open’ their countries, esp. during the quite important holiday season.

While this is all quite informative, this interview from early June 2021 forms a crucial part of our refined understanding of the debilitating auto-aggression of ‘Science’, and in particular ‘Bio-Medical Science’, in this entire Coronavirus Crisis.

Do stay tuned for the next instalment of this little series, in which we’ll discuss what Drosten had to say after the summer.