The ARD moderator and physicist Ranga Yogeshwar was part of the Corona expert council. Image: imago images/Jürgen Heinrich
corona policy
01/26/2023, 16:5101/26/2023, 16:52
When the corona pandemic broke out, opinions on the impending extent differed widely. Some conjured up the apocalypse, others put the danger into perspective. Still others denied the number of deaths, feared vaccination or even accused the government of being brainwashed.
In the meantime, given the more relaxed infection situation, minds have also calmed down a bit in this regard. A moment that several decision-makers have used over the past three years to admit their own mistakes. Also Ranga Yogeshwar, physicist and ARD moderator, admits that he didn’t do everything right.
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As reported by Yogeshwar to “time“that at the beginning of the pandemic he didn’t understand the scope of the whole thing. As a science journalist and presenter who spoke about this topic in programs, that was his job.
ARD moderator questions clinic statistics
In addition to his initial underestimation of the corona virus, Yogeshwar denounces to himself that As a member of the Corona Expert Council, I often did not follow up vigorously enough. The entire council knew very little about whether people died from or with the disease.
Today he thinks he could have pursued it. In addition, Yogeshwar also suspects monetary causes for certain findings:
“In retrospect, I ask myself: Were the statistics so unclear because clinics were able to bill more in one case than in the other? Should I have pursued this vigorously?”
Yogeshwar criticizes the lack of distance
In the later course of the pandemic, the ARD moderator was a face of the Federal Ministry of Health’s vaccination campaign. Looking back, according to Yogeshwar, that was a mistake in his position as he “should have kept more critical distance to a medical systemwhich proved to be antiquated and overwhelmed in some places during the pandemic”. He also received countless hate messages.
Politicians and Ethics Council admit mistakes
According to the “Zeit” there was up to Ranga Yogeshwar no more journalists who wanted to publicly comment on their mistakes. In the politics it looked different. Manuela Schwesig (SPD), Prime Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, admitted that she would no longer have playgrounds closed today. She also regrets the strict ban on visiting nursing homes:
“I hate the idea of people dying alone.”
The Thuringian Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (Die Linke), on the other hand, conceded that that, in his opinion, schools and kindergartens should have remained open. Alena Buyx, medical ethicist and chairwoman of the German Ethics Council, saw things similarly. According to her, “the complex crisis experiences of children and young people during the pandemic should have become the focus of debate and attention”.
The former CDU candidate for Chancellor Armin Laschet and Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki also made statements. Both confessed that in retrospect they would have liked to have been more critical of the measures.
With the winter retreat of the CSU parliamentary group in the Bavarian state parliament, the Christian Socialists start the election campaign year 2023. And with drums and trumpets. In the usual manner, the traffic lights in Berlin are scolded and the successes of the CSU in Bavaria are worked out.
