Corona crisis summit: Instead of Drosten – this expert was an...

Germany At a crisis summit in the Chancellery

Instead of Drosten – this time this expert was Merkel’s Corona advisor

Status: 10:29 am | Reading time: 3 minutes

DThis time it was not the virologist Christian Drosten whom Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) called in as an advisor for further German corona policy. No, the researcher Michael Meyer-Hermann from the Braunschweig Helmholtz Center for Infection Research, who was previously unknown to the general public, advised Merkel and the Prime Ministers in their hour-long debates. The modeling created by Meyer-Hermann gives cause for great concern.

At the beginning of the more than eight-hour consultations with the Prime Minister, Merkel had Meyer-Hermann present a simulation of the phase in which Germany is in the corona pandemic, namely in the area of ​​exponential growth. “I think that was quite plausible and also helpful,” said Merkel.

Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) adopted a statement that Meyer-Hermann is said to have made in his lecture: Accordingly, it is not five to twelve, but already twelve.

According to participants, Meyer-Hermann said at the start of the meeting in the Chancellery that Germany is on the cusp of exponential growth. He appealed to the country leaders and Chancellor Merkel to adhere to the mask requirement, fines are also very important, participants quoted him as saying.

At the same time, in the current situation, he warned against discussions about major events and a shortening of the quarantine period. To make it clearer, the scientist showed a simulation of how the infection process would develop if politicians did not take countermeasures now.

While the name Christian Drosten or the name of the President of the Robert Koch Institute, Lothar Wieler, are now known to the general public, Meyer-Hermann has so far only appeared in public occasionally.

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As on Wednesday in the Chancellery, he warned of the dangers of the corona pandemic in recent months and spoke out in favor of consistent restrictions. Meyer-Hermann published a study with the Munich Ifo Institute in the spring in which he refused to relax the restrictions at the time because of long-term economic disadvantages.

Meyer-Hermann, born in 1967, is a highly educated scientist. He studied physics, mathematics and philosophy in Frankfurt am Main and Paris, and at the age of 30 did his doctorate in theoretical physics. In Dresden, Frankfurt am Main and in Oxford, UK, he worked in neurobiology and immunology; after professorships in Jena and Braunschweig, Meyer-Herrmann has headed the system immunology department at the Helmholtz Center in Braunschweig since 2010.

Meyer-Hermann a “frontier in science”

The Helmholtz Institute Meyer-Hermann describes him as a “frontier worker in science”. In pure science, he therefore missed the reference to the real problems of people, which is why the scientist, who was married to the artist Anna Laclaque, set about predicting the course of the corona pandemic using mathematical models.

The models try to map further developments exactly to the day. Merkel did not say what exactly Meyer-Hermann forecasted developments for which of the coming days – but the Chancellor made no secret of leaving the meeting with concern. The exponential increase in the number of infections determined by Meyer-Hermann must be stopped: “Otherwise it will not end well,” said Merkel.