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Berlin – The almost 4,000-page protocols of the Corona crisis team at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) were published yesterday without redacting. A first look shows: They are snapshots that reflect the confusing situation during the pandemic with frequently changing situations and that leave a lot of room for interpretation.

This is also due to the style of the minutes, with a number of very brief formulations and some linguistic errors: the context and references of some statements are often not clearly comprehensible to outsiders.

The documents from 2020 to 2023 do not contain any kind of conclusion or review of the pandemic period. However, it is clear that the RKI probably had to contend with political influence or similar attempts at some points.

With the protocols, the complexity of the events becomes public, said medical statistician Gerd Antes in an article in the daily News.

Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) wrote in a post on the X platform (formerly Twitter) that the RKI had already planned, with his consent, to “publish the RKI files of the Corona crisis team”. Now it is happening without the prior protection of the rights of third parties, including employees. “There is still nothing to hide,” he stressed.

How the protocols became public

Some of the protocols had already been published several months ago, the online blog Multipolar had claimed to have won the release of the documents through court. German Medical Journal reported.

At the end of May, the RKI itself finally released the documents from January 2020 to April 2021 to the public, but they still contained blacked-out sections. The RKI referred to the protection of personal data as well as the operational and business secrets of third parties.

The comprehensive protocols and additional materials were made available for download yesterday by freelance journalist Aya Velázquez on the website rki-transparenzbericht.de. Regarding the source of the material, she wrote on the portal X (formerly Twitter): “A whistleblower, a former employee of the Robert Koch Institute, approached me and gave me the data set.”

Velázquez held a press conference with, among others, Stefan Homburg, retired professor of public finance at Leibniz University Hannover, who had sparked several debates during the corona pandemic.

Criticism of the expression “pandemic of the unvaccinated”

The criticism of the term “pandemic of the unvaccinated” contained in the minutes (meeting of November 5, 2021) has now sparked much discussion on social networks.

This is what is being talked about in the media, it says. “From a technical point of view, this is not correct, the entire population contributes. Should this be addressed in communication?” And further: “The minister says this at every press conference, probably deliberately, and cannot really be corrected.” At that time, Jens Spahn (CDU) was still Federal Minister of Health.

However, the protocol also states shortly afterwards: “Normally it would not be a problem if people were mildly or asymptomatically infected. The high number of unvaccinated people is the problem.”

Virologist Martin Stürmer is featured in an article on tagesschau.de quoted as saying: “The phrase ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’ is somewhat exaggerated because it suggests that only unvaccinated people become infected.”

That’s not true. “Vaccinated people have also been infected again and again. Of course not to the same extent as unvaccinated people, but it has of course created the false impression that the unvaccinated are the absolute drivers of the pandemic.”

Those who became infected at that time and, above all, became seriously ill were mostly unvaccinated, says Stürmer. The report also points out that the new Delta variant had emerged at that time.

The criticism of the term “pandemic of the unvaccinated” is by no means new; it was already being voiced publicly at the time. Among others, virologist Christian Drosten from the Charité in Berlin said in an interview in November 2021: “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 vulnerable, the older unvaccinated.”

Of instructions and ministerial reservation

Some other passages in the text raise questions about the independence of the RKI’s decisions, particularly when it comes to the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG), to whose subordinate business area the RKI belongs.

In September 2021, an RKI employee was quoted as saying about a ministerial directive before the publication of an update to a paper on contact tracing management: “This included taking into account the AG tests for the clearance test even after 5 days.”

The new passage is causing irritation among the states, the minutes state. And further: “Such influence by the BMG in RKI documents is unusual. […] The scientific independence of the RKI from politics is therefore limited.”

At another point it says: “RKI ideas should be incorporated more intensively, which is not so easy. BKAmt (Editor’s note: Federal Chancellery) asks directly, but RKI has to answer with BMG reservation.”

At the beginning of 2021, a concept for containment measures was recorded: “A step-by-step plan should be published in coordination with the BMG, but the division into stages should be based on evidence (from studies, etc.).”

However, notes from December 13, 2021, shortly after Lauterbach’s start as Federal Minister of Health, on the subject of the Federal Government’s Corona Expert Council indicate an acceptance of different positions: “Minister sees no problem if there is no agreement between RKI and Expert Council, scientific discussion with substantive dispute is possible”.

Daily business of the crisis team

The protocols provide detailed information on data and current status on various topics related to the pandemic, about which the RKI also provided public information: for example, the development of case numbers, current outbreaks, testing capacities and deaths, the availability of vaccines, study results, international developments and containment measures.

Messages that should be communicated externally were also agreed upon. It also concerns agreements between the RKI and other institutions such as the Federal Ministry of Health and the Federal Center for Health Education (BZgA). And a number of gaps in knowledge are addressed and questions raised.

In some places it is made explicitly clear that these are not conclusive, self-explanatory considerations. A passage on the question of the opening of daycare centers and schools from spring 2020, for example, is supplemented with the following words: “For a publishable statement, further work would be necessary to ensure that all existing publications have been taken into account.”

Early scepticism regarding AstraZeneca vaccine

Internally, the RKI already states in a protocol from the beginning of January 2021 that the AstraZeneca vaccine is “not a sure-fire success” like the other vaccines because it is “less perfect”. “Use must be discussed.”

At the beginning of February 2021, it was stated on the subject that the BMG’s communication “should be somewhat slowed down, as there are certainly certain differences with this vaccine.” It is not explained in more detail what differences are meant.

Spahn had himself vaccinated with AstraZeneca in May 2021, and as of the beginning of April 2021, only this vaccine was offered to employees at the RKI, as the protocols show.

RKI: Have neither checked nor verified data sets

The RKI announced yesterday that it had neither checked nor verified the data sets that have now been published. “The RKI expressly disapproves of any unlawful publication of personal data and trade and business secrets of third parties in these data sets, and in particular of any violation of the rights of third parties.” © ggr/aerzteblatt.de