Europe’s best-selling newspaper announced this weekend the lockdown in response to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic was a “huge mistake,” citing a number of public intellectuals critical of the country’s official response.
Reproducing comments from seven well-known intellectuals, Bild underscores the importance of “warning, doubting, and arguing” in the case of a public crisis that involves the suppression of the fundamental rights of citizens.
In presenting the opinions of highly esteemed “lateral thinkers,” the newspaper notes Germany’s political leaders, on the contrary, “pushed the recommendations of other luminaries to justify the lockdown of the economy and public life, as well as the severe interference with everyone’s freedoms,” while ignoring contrary voices.
Prof. Klaus Püschel, for instance, a respected pathologist and head of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Hamburg University Hospital, argues that “in the end, COVID-19 is a viral disease like the flu, which in most cases is harmless and is only fatal in exceptional cases.
“It is important to look at the aftermath of the epidemic to see if COVID-19 really was the cause of death,” Püschel observes. “Of the approximately 180 deceased with coronavirus that we have now examined, all suffered from severe pre-existing conditions and were not children or adolescents. The COVID-19 infection was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
University of Hanover Professor Stefan Homburg, a former adviser to the federal government, agrees official figures in Germany in no way justified the lockdown.
“In Italy, the coronavirus epidemic was worse than a flu epidemic, in Germany it was less severe,” Homburg said. “With the lockdown, the federal and state governments have made a huge mistake.” – READ MORE
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