"It's gonna be bad"

February 28, 2020, 4:51 a.m. "Maybrit Illner" on the coronavirus

The second Maybrit-Illner program on the coronavirus is an exchange of blows between two doctors. But they both agree on one thing: There is a lot rolling towards the country.

Night review from Thomas Hummel

Anyone who had hoped that Maybrit Illner's expert panel on the coronavirus would lead to being able to go to bed calmly afterwards will be startled shortly before the end of the show at the latest. Christian Drosten, professor and director of the Department of Virology at the Charité in Berlin, has been in a bad mood for quite some time now and says that Germany has not yet developed the right awareness of this new virus. In America, a high-ranking head of authority recently asked the population for help, "in the expectation that it will be bad". Illner sums up somewhat irritated: She sums up "cooperation" and "it could get bad". Drosten looks very sternly and corrects her: "It will be bad." Now even the last one has understood it.

The professor from Berlin is the most impressive guest on this so-called talk show, which this time is not a talk show but a medical information event for a population that has been fluctuating between fear and coolness for a few days now. The coronavirus now seems to be out of control in the country. Among other things because an infected couple in North Rhine-Westphalia was at a carnival session with hundreds of guests, the husband later collapsed due to pneumonia and can no longer be asked where he might have caught the virus. One person, who in turn was infected by the couple, then spent days at the Tropical Island adventure pool in Brandenburg. Where all the other carnivalists have been in the meantime will be difficult to explore. And since the virus is apparently extremely easy to transmit from person to person, it is hardly possible for the authorities to continue to find and isolate all those infected. "We are at the beginning of an epidemic", Health Minister Jens Spahn said already on Wednesday.

Is Germany well prepared or overburdened? Two experts argue

Hence Maybrit Illner's question: "Coronavirus without borders - how well prepared is Germany?" Spahn is back on the air from Düsseldorf and says calming and not calming things. Words like crisis management team, death rate, pandemic plans, vigilance, determination. He had been live on the show four weeks earlier, at the time together with the doctor Johannes Wimmer. He is now back and reminds everyone that he warned at the time of a serious problem. He can now feel confirmed and consistently criticizes the authorities for having reacted too late. Klaus Reinhardt, President of the German Medical Association, points out that Germany, with 28,000 intensive care beds, 1,200 intensive care units and 1,400 internal medicine wards, is well prepared for an increase in infections. But Wimmer is against it: If two infected persons came to an emergency room at the same time at three o'clock in the morning, the personnel there would already be overtaxed.

Christian Drosten is frozen in this debate. No facial expressions are visible until he finally says: "I really have to say that the discussion here makes me more silent and more silent and more silent. That is really completely off the mark. We're looking for problems where there aren't any." Criticism of the authorities is a waste of time and energy, the strategies are all right. That sounds good at first. But: "This virus will wipe away all these discussions." Epidemiologists' estimates indicate that some kind of pandemic influenza is sweeping the country. The last of this kind occurred in 1957 and 1968. The first was called Asian flu and killed one to two million people worldwide. The second was called Hong Kong flu and caused up to two million deaths, including around 30 000 in Germany. "Nobody can seriously remember this," Drosten believes, "we had a different medicine, a different society then."

A vaccine may not be available until summer 2021

In some moments of the show it is unclear whether Drosten is trying to calm down or to shake up. In any case, he is dissatisfied with the course of the show and complains: "It's complete nonsense to ask if Germany is prepared." Because no one can know yet what the country should be prepared for. The decisive question for him is: "At what rate will 60 to 70 percent of the German population experience the virus? That's about 50 million people. If this happens within a few weeks, that would be the worst case scenario. If this scenario were to happen within the next two years, it would not be a problem at all. At present, there are some indications that it will happen within a year, and "then it's already a problem," says Drosten. Especially elderly, previously ill people are at risk of becoming victims of the virus in the event of infection. And a vaccine will probably not be available until summer 2021 at the earliest, when it could already be too late.

Together with Wimmer he delivers the central, verbal exchange of blows in the show. Carola Reimann, Health Minister of Lower Saxony from the SPD, as well as science journalist Alina Schadwinkel provide rather common classifications. Almost horrified, Schadwinkel reacted to Doctor Wimmer's demand that the carnival should have been cancelled this year. "Extreme fear and exaggerated panic" would have been the result, Schadwinkel believes. But Wimmer is much too convinced of his opinion to give it up. And that these mass and celebration events are a dream for viruses and their spread is nothing new, he says. "Carnival is sacred to many people, but then you're just the bogeyman," he explains, "you could have said Watch out!"

One expert gives hope that the spread may soon abate

A few hopeful statements are also made in the round. Tips, for example: The usual ones, like washing hands and sneezing into the crook of your arm, and more far-reaching ones like putting on gloves (whimpering) or quitting smoking (drostening). In addition, pregnant women and children are apparently well equipped against the virus. And Drosten says the curious sentence: "My fear is that we will be able to delay the whole thing very well." I think he means it's his hope. He also hopes that with the warmer season the spread of the virus could be substantially slowed. And even Wimmer has some good news for all the unsettled viewers: "If I had a severe lung disease caused by Corona, I would love to be in Germany." Because the supply situation here is very good in comparison.

In the course of the evening, several reports about the virus in Germany are received: Hamburg and Hesse confirm the first cases, Bavaria has another one, in Baden-Württemberg there are now eight infected people, in the North Rhine-Westphalian district of Heinsberg with the carnivalists there are now 20. If Christian Drosten is right, this is probably just the beginning.

Translated Version - Original here

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