Drosten Speaks, Part 2

The November Interview in Die Zeit

This is the second part of a three-part series on the ever-changing attitudes and opinions of Christian Drosten—Germany’s de facto equivalent of Anthony Fauci—has said over the course of the past few months.

In part 1, we discussed Drosten’s big interview, which appeared in the Swiss magazine Die Republik on 5 June 2021.

In this post, we’ll dive into Drosten’s more recent big interview with the German daily Die Zeit, conducted by Giovanni di Lorenzo and Andreas Sentker and published on 10 Nov. 2021.

Entitled ‘I hope that one doesn’t close schools again’, here’s Drosten again (emphases added):

‘Science has done its job, says virologist Christian Drosten. The vaccine is there. What follows now is a matter of politics.’

Leaving aside pseudo-postmodernistic ‘ideas’ (if one can, in fact, call it that way) that would suggest the separation of discourse from its originator, the interview opens as follows:

‘[Q:] Have you sometimes regretted becoming a public figure?

[Drosten:] Yes, certainly. I sometimes experience real hatred. Just recently, here in Berlin, I walked past a group of passers-by. Someone shouts “Nuremberg 2.0” after me. I didn’t turn around, for I believe that, despite such incidents, there was a benefit in addressing the public.

(…)

[Drosten:] Informing the people, that was a conscious decision for me. I worked on coronaviruses for a long time. If you really know your way around a subject, you can not only read the scientific papers of others, but also assess the situation from your own professional experience. I simply had to make this assessment available.

(…)

Many people now recognise me when I’m out shopping or on the street, and that is—to put it mildly—not always a relaxed situation.’

The interviewers then ask a bit about Drosten’s experiences making podcasts (which I’ll spare you here) before addressing the heart of the matter:

‘[Q:]: You repeatedly criticise the media and their role in the pandemic. Recently your criticism has become even louder—why?

[Drosten:] Individual media outlets in Germany—including the selection of their sources and guests—have been using a certain agenda for months to suggest to the population that the danger is not that great; that the measures are one-sided and exaggerated; That, for example, you only have to protect the old people’s homes, and then the rest of society can just carry on as before. That really unsettled the politicians at the time. You realise how absurd the narrative with elder care homes is when you realise that only a small part of the particularly endangered old people's cohort even lives in old people's homes. And then there were the constant attacks on individual scientists. I’m not talking about Julian Reichelt, the Bild-Zeitung [a popular daily of the tabloid version] and their attacks on me. That would be too short-sighted. I’m talking about the general atmosphere, this constant second-guessing in the reports and moderations, the undertones.’

And there there is this nugget:

‘[Q:] Are the virologists then completely innocent of these misunderstandings and undertones in the reporting?

[Drosten] If a discipline has a clear message that the public can orientate itself by, then that is good for the [academic] discipline. But if one says this and the other says that, if the impression is created that among virologists you can pick and choose whoever suits you, then that is bad for the discipline.’

Look, I’ve been working in academia for well over a decade, albeit in a different field, but it would be news to me, in fact, that there has to be a consensus. Curiously enough, at this point I’m wondering if Mr. Drosten would rather imagine virology as a kind of ‘faith-based venture’ where someone gets to soothsay the meaning of this or that based on one or the other set of innards or the way birds flew three days ago. Whatever he actually meant, the interviewers didn’t press him on this, and Drosten didn’t take this any further, but the idea that ‘science’ needs to be consensual is outlandish and, frankly, patently absurd.

Let’s move on, though, there’s much more.

‘[Q:] We have experienced the process of scientific discovery live as an audience—with all the hypotheses, errors and corrections: Are door handles dangerous? Do masks protect, or do they not?

[Drosten:] As I said, that was the case in the beginning. Let’s take the masks. At the beginning of the pandemic, there were simply not enough masks available, and the ones that were had to be saved for the medical staff. But there was also no good evidence for the usefulness of masks from the general literature on respiratory viruses. It was only later that specific data on coronavirus became increasingly useful.’

[Q:] That is confusing for the public.

[Drosten:] Individual media are also partly responsible for this. They have accused the scientists of sometimes saying one thing, sometimes saying something else. They have concealed the fact that there were four months between the statements and that there have been new scientific findings in the meantime.’

Here, too, Drosten is being quite disingenuous. Instead of offering clear-cut answers, he deflects the question and ventures into some ill-defined media blaming. To be honest, the media deserves its fair share of the blame, no doubt about that, but to omit, in this context, that there are by now 47 (!) studies that prove no benefits of wearing masks is highly problematic.

‘[Drosten:] This narrative of constantly self-correcting “Science” is exaggerated. I did not feel that after two or three months I had to fundamentally change my assessment of the major underlying issues of the Corona pandemic. Perhaps with the exception of the virus variants, which surprised me too.

(…)

The extent of the danger for Europe only became clear to many politicians with the outbreak in Bergamo and the pictures of the coffins. But by then the virus had long been in the country. There was no need to close any more borders. But what really helped us in Germany was that we were the first to be able to detect the virus on a large scale by PCR-testing.

[Q:] Do you remember the very first positive test?

[Drosten:] I remember it very well, for we always did the confirmatory diagnostics at the beginning—the patient had been infected in Italy, he immediately passed the virus on to his family. But I can remember the next diagnosis even more clearly, because immediately afterwards, we received a sample from a patient who had not been abroad before. That it was found was pure coincidence. The laboratory had done the Covid-19 test on several suspected cases of influenza in parallel with the influenza test, just for fun, and bang, one of them was positive. He had been infected here in Germany out of the blue. It was clear to me then that the virus was already circulating in the country.’

The interview than focuses on the origins of SARS-CoV2, with Drosten dismissing the lab leak hypothesis as ‘extremely unlikely [äußerst unwahrscheinlich]’. But then the conversation veers back to more relevant aspects, including political decision-making:

[Droste‘n:] Policy advice occurred almost always in the form of hastily convened ad-hoc meetings. Almost everything was done orally.

[Q:]: But did the most important messages get through?

[Drosten:] You don’t know, as a scientific advisor you hardly get any feedback and have no control over it.

[Q:] Did you have the impression that your interlocutors lacked competence?

[Drosten:] On the political side? Politicians can’t all be competent in viral diseases or exceptional scientific situations of this magnitude. They come from other professions, and they have often been out of [their original work fields] for a long time. But I too must point out one much-cited exception: Angela Merkel. She asked the right questions. She is super-fast in her comprehension. She has a mathematical understanding that really helps with these epidemiological problems.’

There’s another section on domestic and state policies, which are detailed, if not entirely relevant to Drosten’s main case, which continues as follows:

[Q:] So, [scientific] policy advice was not too successful after all.

[Drosten:] I have heard this accusation several times that advice was wrong at the time. That is simply not true. And it was not only Mrs. Merkel who was advised, and Mrs. Merkel then said what had to be done. The federal ministries had huge advisory councils. And, of course, every prime minister [state governor] had a staff of advisers from his surrounding universities around him, if only out of regional solidarity.

[Q:] So much advice. Why, then, was implementation so poor?

[Drosten:] That is indeed frustrating. The public health system is already very fragmented. What you experience when you sit down with 30 health department heads is precisely not the consensus of science. You come across very extreme positions. And some of these are then directly translated into action. This sometimes leads to a confusion of measures.

[Q:] At the beginning of the pandemic, the criticism was that politics had relied too one-sidedly on virologists and epidemiologists. Before the school closures on 19 March [2020], more attention should have been paid to pedagogical scholars, psychologists and sociologists, who were given their say too late.

[Drosten:] The politicians would have closed the schools even after involving scientists from other fields beforehand. It is also true that we, i.e., the scientists involved, did not say that the schools had to be closed. Other assertions are false.

[Q:] But didn’t you refer to the historical experience with the Spanish flu in 1918 in the US? St. Louis had closed the schools early, Philadelphia weeks later—with the consequence of significantly more deaths.

[Drosten:] That is exactly what I presented. That was also publicly heard on [my] podcast at the same time. But we did not deduce from it the consequence for politics that all schools in Germany must now be closed. At the time, the schools in Gangelt had just been closed, and we described precisely that as exemplary: A local reaction, that’s what you have to do.

[Q:] That means that the nationwide school closures were unnecessary?

[Drosten:] In Germany we had this huge advantage that we were able to do PCR diagnostics everywhere at the beginning of the first wave. That’s why we could have reacted locally. And that would probably have been enough in the first wave. That’s exactly what I said in that first instance. But the next morning, the news came that one state after the other was closing schools. That must have been the discussion dynamic of this Minister Presidents’ Conference after we left the room. I don’t know who pushed for that; I was not there. I can only say clearly: This was a purely political decision, it was not recommended by science.

[Q:] We can see that this annoys you.

[Drosten:] It annoys me because I am still being blamed for it today: Mr Drosten is responsible for closing the schools. Drosten, the child molester. None of the politicians involved has ever set the record straight.’

At this point, let me briefly intercede: this is correct—and it dovetails neatly with what Hannes Hofbauer said when speaking candidly about the irresponsibility of the political class.

Back to Drosten, who then moved on to discuss Covid-19 and children, with off-handed remarks on politics vs. science vs. ‘the economy’. I don’t know if ‘enjoy’ is the right way to characterise these comments—but if Mr. Drosten is such a high-powered, educated scholar, he clearly fails to understand the basics of ‘politics’ (money) and how ‘the economy’ corrupts politicians from the get-go. If anything, I think Mr. Drosten may be a good virologist, but he clearly lacks virtually any understanding of how the political system works:

‘[Q:] Do you find the trade-off between the risk of infection and the harm to children in the lockdown legitimate?

[Drosten:] Of course. But how the trade-off turns out depends on the wave you look at. In the second wave, the situation was quite different. We had high levels of infection, and many people had already died. The school closures stopped the second wave. The schools tipped the scales.

[Q:] Could there have been alternatives?

[Drosten:] One could also have said that the schools would remain open, but we would enforce really tough home office criteria in the service sector. We take the economy to task, not the schools.

[Q:] That, too, was a political decision?

[Drosten:] Yes, the politicians had a glass in front of them that was already quite full. It was not allowed to overflow. But whether it is coke or mineral water that is poured into it is quite irrelevant. Politicians discussed coke more and mineral water less, i.e., the presence of the beverages at workplaces. They largely relied on the voluntary efforts of the companies, which many of them did.’

Case in point, isn’t it? Forget Drosten’s weird way of saying that politicians are irresponsible (which he won’t do, for he’s way too far into these ‘[hunger] games’ already: he won’t bite the hand that feeds him).

Moving on, here’s perhaps the central part of the interview.

Drosten: ‘We don’t have a pandemic of the unvaccinated, we have a pandemic.’

‘[Q:] Where are we now? The numbers are rising more dramatically right now than they did in November 2020—despite the vaccinations.

[Drosten:] There is a narrative at the moment that I think is completely wrong: the pandemic of the unvaccinated. We don’t have a pandemic of the unvaccinated, we have a pandemic. And we have people who are still very much at risk, the older unvaccinated. Among the over-60s, we only have a vaccination rate of 86 percent of fully vaccinated people, that’s insane, that’s really dangerous.

[Q:] But why don’t we have a pandemic of the unvaccinated? They are the ones in the ICU, including at the Charité [the Berlin University Clinic where Drosten works].

[Drosten:] Those who are not vaccinated are infected with their respective age-typical risk profile. Many will then end up in intensive care, which overburdens ICUs. That is why the acute goal is not to allow too many infections at once. Unfortunately, the Delta Variant has the property of spreading despite vaccination. After two or three months, the transmission protection of the vaccines begins to decline. And we have a lot of people in the relevant age groups who were already vaccinated in May or June. They are now gradually losing their protection against transmission, and they are becoming more and more numerous. We have a pandemic to which everyone contributes—including the vaccinated, albeit somewhat less.’

At this point, I think we can all appreciate the candour, but in light of recent developments, I fear this is too little, too late.

‘[Q:] What does that mean for the further course of infection?

[Drosten:] We have two paths we can take in the vaccination strategy: One is to close the vaccination gaps with all our might. From a purely scientific point of view, a comprehensive vaccination of the entire adult population would sustainably reduce the burden in intensive care units. Then every infection would be a vaccine breakthrough, and they would be significantly less pathogenic.’

Leaving aside the questionable reasoning, where’s the data to back this up? If anything, data from the UK, Israel, and elsewhere suggests this is a wrongful assertion.

‘[Q:] What could that be compared to? Influenza?

[Drosten:] Then you could reckon with a mobidity of less than 0.1 per cent, which corresponds to a severe influenza season.

[Q:] And the alternative?

[Drosten:] Before the virus variants appeared, we had hoped that after vaccination there would also be protection against transmission for months. At that time, we rightly discussed a possible herd immunity: You vaccinate 70 per cent, and the rest gradually become infected over the next months to years. After one and a half years, most of them would be through, the ICUs would be busy for a long time, but not overloaded. Then there would have been no need for further control measures. This would not have prevented any deaths among the unvaccinated. But it would have cushioned the strain on the health system.

[Q:] And where are we now?

[Drosten:] Now we can no longer hope for this effect. The delta virus continues to spread among a considerable fraction of the vaccinated.’

And now for Drosten’s suggestions:

‘[Q:] If I am doubly vaccinated, can I be similarly infectious after an infection as a completely unvaccinated person?

[Drosten:] The viral load…is quite comparable in the first few days of infection. Then it drops faster in the vaccinated. The trouble is, in fact, that infection is transmitted right at the beginning. I am convinced that we have only a small benefit from fully vaccinated adults who do not get their booster jab.

[Q:]: What, then, is the solution?

[Drosten:] What one could do now would be to carry out a booster campaign with great vigour, a campaign for third jab among all those who are already vaccinated now, beginning with the elderly. That would probably guarantee herd immunity at least for the duration of the winter.

[Q:] And do you still think that is feasible?

 [Drosten:] I think it makes sense from an infectious disease point of view. In addition to protecting the old, one would probably regain transmission protection, and then the incidence will drop rapidly. It would be even better to do both: boost and close vaccination gaps. But that is a matter for politics. Mind you, I’m not demanding anything here, and I don’t want to suggest that boosting alone could solve the problem. Time is probably too short for that anyway.

[Q:] But you say what is needed now: Boosters! Close the vaccination gaps! But there is a section of the population that refuses to do so.

[Drosten:] Yes. But we also got most people to protect themselves from accidental death when driving by making seat belts compulsory. When this was introduced, many people got upset.’

Incredibly, the seatbelt analogy, while idiotic in and of itself, is also employed by many politicians (like the Austrian Chancellor recently)—but there is something missing: car manufacturers do not enjoy immunity from liability. Unlike the ‘vaccine’ manufacturers, companies such as, say, Toyota or Ford are liable, while Pfizer/BioNTech, J&J, or Moderna are not.

Dear Mr. Drosten (and really everyone making this argument), if you bring up the seatbelts were hated analogy, you should also mention the liability issue. Take, say, this recent example from January 2021, which explains the situation:

‘Ford is recalling 3 million US and Canadian vehicles with airbags manufactured by the same company whose devices have been linked to at least 18 deaths in the United States.

The move comes after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Tuesday rejected Ford's argument that this version of the airbags didn’t need to be replaced.’

Yes, you read this correctly: at least 18 deaths in the US are sufficient to make a company such as Ford recall 3m vehicles at significant costs to the company.

We’re beyond 40,000 dead, hundreds of thousands of severe adverse reactions to the Covid-19 ‘vaccines’, and upwards of 2.7m adverse reactions that were reported in the US, the UK, and in the EudraVigilance databases, yet manufacturers’ liability isn’t discussed openly.

So, if you wish to bring up the seatbelt analogy, why not bring up the liability, too? These two go together like peas in a pod.

Back to Drosten’s final comments on the needs of the moment, in which the virologist contradicts himself two more times before abdicating, again, any responsibility on his part:

‘[Q:] What, then, is the way out?

[Drosten:] For lack of alternatives, we will have to go back to contact-restricting measures because of the unvaccinated. I don’t know if that is legally possible. That leaves the 2G model, i.e., a lockdown for the unvaccinated. Whether this will reduce the incidence in November, I have my doubts. In any case, I hope that schools will not be closed again. That would be a relatively easy measure to implement. For politicians, it’s much easier than saying: now we’re going to make home office compulsory. And I don't even want to think about the consequences for the hospitality and retail industries right before Christmas.

[Q:] And there is no way around that?

[Drosten:] I think it is certain that contact-limiting measures are needed. What exactly they will look like is, as I said, a matter for politics.

[Q:] Never again a lockdown, that was the promise at the beginning of the vaccination programme. Now we would have to get booster jabs in order to prevent a lockdown, but we have closed the vaccination centres. So back to the old rules of conduct? Social distancing, hygiene, face masks?

[Drosten:] The key thing with the delta variant is to avoid large groups in closed rooms. It is transmitted via aerosols, so distance alone does not protect. The reflex must be clear: I go into a room with many people, I put on the mask.

[Q:] Even where everyone is fully vaccinated or recovered, i.e., where 2G is compulsory?

[Drosten:] In such groups, the virus is transmitted less strongly, and those infected have milder courses. So, with strict controls, that’s fine. But it only works with 2G. A negative test in an unvaccinated person does not protect him or her from infection.

[Q]: What about the people who refuse to take any measures, who say: We don’t care about the mask?

[Drosten:] That doesn’t bother me as long as they are few. Most people simply have to wear masks most of the time. And many are willing to do so.’

Finally, here’s the last words:

‘[Q:] How do you look forward to the next year?

[Drosten:] This virus will become endemic. There’s no way we can vaccinate it away, because we can’t vaccinate the whole world population. And soon there will be immune-escape variants against which the vaccination is no longer effective. That’s why we have to consciously enter the endemic phase.

[Q:] And what would that look like?

[Drosten:] You can observe that in England. England has about as high a vaccination rate as we do and unfortunately twice as many deaths per inhabitant. England is now in a post-infection phase that has been going on since late summer. These natural infections build up community protection. This is not yet possible here, because there are fewer people who have recovered, and the old people are less well vaccinated. In [Germany], an uncontrolled post-infection phase would mean at least another 100,000 deaths if we do not close the vaccination gaps beforehand.

(…)

[Q:] Why is vaccination alone not sufficient for this?

[Drosten:] Vaccination immunisation has a systemic effect, it protects the lungs, you no longer suffer a severe course. But the vaccine immunity gradually fades, and the mucous membrane in the nose and throat is unprotected again. This is also the case with all other coronaviruses. Every year and a half, we catch each of these four coronaviruses, whether we contract them or not. This keeps our immunity updated. With this coronavirus, we also have to get into this mode.

[Q:] What does that mean in concrete terms?

[Drosten:] It means that on the basis of a vaccination immunity that protects us from the ICU, we get our first sore throat with the new coronavirus at some point. Some also get a fever. And then we probably experience a second or third natural infection later on. At some point, our mucosal protection is also resilient enough that we are quite well immunised as a society.’

That’s it for this interview. Now you know.

I think Drosten is a bit more forthcoming than, say, Anthony Fauci, but that’s a relatively low bar to begin with. If anything, he seems to say one thing before backtracking, and then fails to bring up relevant comparisons (e.g., on liability issues).

My bet is that if Big Pharma would be liable, this nightmare would end the day before yesterday.