Drosten study on infectious children grossly wrong

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How long has the star virologist known about this?

by FILIPP PIATOV published on 25.05.2020 - 16:34

Star virologist Christian Drosten (48) was completely wrong with his most important corona study.

On 29th April the Institute of Virology at the Charité hospital in Berlin, which Drosten heads, published a paper with far-reaching political consequences. A research team had investigated whether children are just as infectious as adults.

The result of the Drosten study seemed clear: "Children can be just as infectious as adults." The researchers' urgent appeal to politicians: "Based on these results, we must warn against the unlimited reopening of schools and kindergartens in the current situation."

Several weeks after its publication, the Drosten study has come under increasing criticism: Scientists from several countries accuse Charité researchers of having worked uncleanly - with disastrous consequences.

Explosive: According to BILD information, the criticism also finds approval in Drostens research team. Internally, the errors have already been admitted.

Did the German school policy fall victim to a wrong study?

Scientists criticize Drosten study

Professor Leonhard Held of the Institute for Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention at the University of Zurich criticizes in a study the validity of the Drosten study: "The findings must be interpreted with some caution.

The central weak point of the Drosten study is the small number of children examined, Held complains. The study "suffers ... (under, editor's note) from a small sample size of children and young people".

In a renewed evaluation of the summarized data, Held comes to a conclusion that fundamentally contradicts the results of the Drosten study: There is moderate evidence of an "increasing viral load with increasing age".

Also, statistics professor Dominik Liebl from the University of Bonn points out serious inconsistencies in the Drosten study. "The mean viral load of the age group kindergarten is 86 percent lower than the mean viral load of the age group older people", Liebl explains in a study.

Christoph Rothe, professor of statistics in Mannheim, writes: "The fact that such large differences are classified as 'not significant' by the authors is due to the fact that the statistical methods used are very weak.

Liebl says: "The authors' statistical analysis contradicts their central conclusion."

This would mean that the Drosten researchers had misunderstood their own figures!

Research team itself discussed shortcomings

Professor of economics Jörg Stoye from the renowned Cornell University in New York is also taking the Drosten study to court. "My reading of the Charité study reverses its thrust," Stoye writes in a detailed analysis of the statistical methods of the Drosten paper.

His accusation: the results "seem to be driven by decisions of the researchers. The thrust of the results "coincides with the public positions (...) of the respective main authors".

Stoye sees no evidence in the Drosten study that schools should remain closed. The US professor's bitter conclusion: "There are many good arguments against a quick reopening of schools, but the Charité study does not contribute anything."

BILD confronted Christian Drosten with the accusations. Drosten did not want to respond to BILD's inquiry. Instead, he published the BILD inquiry on Twitter and wrote that he had "better things to do". Within the research team, however, the shortcomings of the study according to BILD information had already been discussed and partly admitted.

Drosten himself had described the study after its publication as "very clean statistical analysis". On Monday morning, Drosten explained on Deutschlandfunk radio that there were "no major references from the scientific literature" that confirmed "what is written here and there in expressions of opinion". He said that "based on the available scientific data" it did not appear to him at all that children were "less infectious or less susceptible to infection".

Interesting: As late as 6 March Christian Drosten rejected school closures. This measure should be kept for the autumn, "now it would probably be too early", the Charité virologist told the "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung". Then Drosten changed his mind. Already on March 13, Drosten recommended to the conference of minister-presidents under the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel (65, CDU) to close the educational institutions.

Translated and reblogged Version - Original here