Overview
- Christian Drosten testified that rapid infection-control measures in early 2020 likely prevented about 60,000 deaths, citing a comparison that Germany could have seen roughly 70,000 fatalities in the first wave instead of about 9,300 with a later response like Britain’s.
- He said vaccinations substantially reduced mortality, which was especially evident during the Delta-driven winter of 2021–2022.
- Former RKI president Lothar Wieler argued policymakers reacted too late ahead of the 2021 and 2022 winter waves and identified those moments as missed opportunities.
- Wieler stated the Robert Koch Institute did not consider COVID-19 a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” distancing the agency from political phrasing used at the time.
- Drosten said a single SARS-CoV-2 infection conferred surprisingly little immunity and noted that pandemic trajectories depend on human behavior, complicating precise forecasts.