Against the "theories"

Minister: Corona protocols will be redacted

Karl Lauterbach wants to ensure more transparency.

(Bild: AFP/John Macdougall)

German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has announced more transparency in the coronavirus protocols of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) that have become public. There should not be the slightest impression that something is being "deliberately concealed" here - so that "even more conspiracy theories do not build up".

"Yesterday, I arranged for the protocols to be blacked out as far as possible," the SPD politician said on Deutschlandfunk radio on Thursday. It should be checked once again what absolutely needs to be made illegible. "This means that the Robert Koch Institute must now ask permission from everyone who is named in the protocols or whose interests are named so that the redaction can take place."

This will take some time, "perhaps four weeks", but then a much clearer version can be presented.

A few days ago, the online magazine "Multipolar" published partially redacted minutes of the RKI crisis team from the period from January 2020 to April 2021. As a result, calls for a review of government policy to contain the coronavirus pandemic, which claimed tens of thousands of lives in Germany, grew louder.

"Not a hint of an impression"
Lauterbach reiterated that he had nothing to do with the redaction of the protocols. According to the Freedom of Information Act, the Robert Koch Institute had to black out certain names and also black out certain things that concerned third parties. He is in favor of maximum transparency. "I simply don't want there to be any hint of the impression that the Robert Koch Institute is deliberately concealing anything or that there is even political interference from the German government, that the Robert Koch Institute is not publishing things here."

The German Robert Koch Institute was considered a pioneer during the pandemic.

(Bild: AFP)

Parliamentary review?
When asked what a review of the corona measures in Germany should look like, Lauterbach did not want to commit himself. "If there is a parliamentary review, parliament must also decide how this should be done."

Overall, more transparency is needed "so that even more conspiracy theories don't build up around that time", the minister is quoted as saying.