On March 17, 2020 the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Germany’s equivalent to the CDC, raised its risk assessment for COVID-19 from “moderate” to “high” overnight and warned the pandemic could last 2 years! Five days later, on March 22, 2020 Germany began to restrict contact and lockdown. [4]
On March 18, 2020 Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed the nation and announce the country would be “powering down”.
As far as the epidemic is concerned – and everything I tell you about this comes from the Federal Government’s ongoing consultations with the experts from the Robert Koch Institute and other scientists and virologists: the most intensive research is being conducted around the world, but there is still neither a way to treat the coronavirus, nor is there a vaccine…
As long as this is the case – and this is what is guiding all of our actions – then only one thing matters, namely that we slow the spread of the virus, flatten the curve over the course of several months and buy time.”..
So, our aim is to slow the virus down as it makes its way through Germany. And we must, and this is absolutely vital, focus our attention on one thing above all else, namely powering down public life as far as possible…
Virologists are giving us clear advice: no more handshakes, we must wash our hands thoroughly and often, and we must keep at least one and a half metre’s distance between ourselves and others…
This is a historic task, and it can only be mastered if we face it together..
It won’t be until March 2024, after FOIA-like court order, that RKI documents reveal there was no scientific basis for the RKI’s risk assessment change, nor the unprecedented imposed the COVID-19 measures said to be base on “science”. [1, 2, 3]