Virologist Streeck accuses politician Lauterbach of "splitting"

Hendrik Streeck and Karl Lauterbach are joint guests at Maybrit Illner in the ZDF Talk. Actually, it’s about Corona and possible easing – but then it gets personal.

Mainz – In the ZDF talk show Maybrit Illner on Thursday (July 8th, 2021) five guests dealt with the risks of the Corona easing in the summer. The title of the program was: “Back to life – more freedom, less caution?” . One of the guests was North Rhine-Westphalia’s Health Minister Karl-Josef-Laumann (CDU), who firmly rejected the criticism of the easing in his state. There is a huge protective screen, you are not “daring”, he explained. But the actual discussion of the evening had virologist Hendrik Streeck and health politician Karl Lauterbach (SPD). They clashed violently.

It is not the first time that the two scientists met in the corona pandemic, most recently at Markus Lanz’s a week ago, but so far the discussions have mostly been factual and professional. In this case, however, it got personal.

Maybrit Illner (ZDF): Virologist Streek and health expert Lauterbach clash

The two experts disagreed at the beginning of the program. Streeck explained that the corona vaccines would continue to protect against severe disease and rapid transmission, even with the aggressive Delta variant. Lauterbach then referred to “real-life data” from Israel, according to which the vaccination protection of Biontech-Pfizer against a severe Covid-19 course in the Delta variant is still 93 percent. According to Lauterbach, it was 99 percent before. Streeck contradicted: “But that’s not true.” The studies had previously shown values between 94 and 96 percent.

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But it wasn’t until later in the ZDF broadcast, when it came to the vaccination campaign in Germany, that Streeck and Lauterbach really got into each other. First of all, Hendrik Streeck defended the Standing Vaccination Commission in what appeared to be almost a “speech”. If you understand the mechanisms and how many experts are working with the existing data at Stiko, it must be clear to everyone that it is a current, temporary decision not to recommend the vaccines for children initially, which could change again at any time. According to Streeck, Lauterbach’s criticism of the Stiko contributes to the “division of society”. And that was just the beginning of the virologist’s attack on Karl Lauterbach. It seemed as if a lot had built up at Streeck over the months of the pandemic.

Streeck criticizes Maybrit Illner: Lauterbach’s “campaign style” is inappropriate

According to the virologist’s allegation, Lauterbach created “brutal” shortenings from differentiated statements. It is completely inappropriate, as the SPD health expert expresses in interviews, for example, allegations about Streeck that would not apply. With the accusation, Streeck was apparently referring to a recent Spiegel interview. Lauterbach said that “with colleagues, whether Streeck, Schmidt-Chanasit or – what’s his name again? – Klaus Stöhr, always comes down to the same thesis: The lockdown was superfluous. We shouldn’t have listened to Lauterbach, Drosten or Melanie Brinkmann, Viola Priesemann. “

Very indecent, how you insinuate that I find the lockdown superfluous. In doing so, you are contributing to the division.

Instead, Streeck wanted Lauterbach to work better together. He has a “campaign style” that is not appropriate in a pandemic.

Karl Lauterbach defends himself at Maybrit Illner (ZDF): “I will never get personal”

Lauterbach reacted calmly. “I try not to divide, I never get personal,” the health politician contradicted. And afterwards he adds: “I appreciate your qualifications and work.” The debate is not about Streeck as a person, but about a factual criticism of Stiko’s decisions. Lauterbach emphasized that he was dissatisfied with a decision. This is not a “lese majesty”. The Stiko basically does a good job. “Wherever I like something at Stiko, I praise it, and where I don’t like it I criticize it. That’s how I do it with you,” said Lauterbach.

The discrepancies are purely technical. He had agreed with Streeck in some places, but on the other hand he was still of the opinion that Streeck had not requested or even rejected the one or other necessary lockdown. He disagreed with that. Science journalist Christina Berndt also supported him. She reminded Streeck of interviews in which he had rejected a corona lockdown as too early in November 2020: “I think at that point you also contributed to the split”.

At Maybrit Illner, Streeck again campaigned for the creation of an interdisciplinary pandemic council at the federal level. The idea of science is to bring different opinions into a discourse. In a pandemic in particular, it is “incredibly important” to bring together different points of view. (iwe)

Rubriclistenbild: © Screenshot ZDF