"Admired and hated". It could be the title of a film, it is above all the one chosen by the magazine Der Spiegel, on May 28, to "sell" on the cover the long interview that the German virologist Christian Drosten granted him.
The Twitter account of this renowned researcher perfectly illustrates his sudden notoriety. From March 4, 2016 to January 23, Christian Drosten did not publish any message on the social network prized by actors in political, media, scientific and economic life. Since then, in parallel with the coronavirus crisis, each of its many publications has been shared tens or even hundreds or thousands of times. On the flip side, he now finds himself harassed by a fringe of extremism in German public opinion.
Dieser Titel (nicht das Interview) ist ein Sieg der @Bild. Der Spiegel nimmt das polarisierende Framing der Bildzeitung auf, statt Drosten als international führenden Virologen darzustellen, der jetzt für Kampagnen gegen angeblich überflüssige Restriktionen missbraucht wird. pic.twitter.com/FfXYmSL9UW
- Ruprecht Polenz (@polenz_r) May 29, 2020Christian Drosten, 48, is the director of the Institute of Virology at Charité University Hospital in Berlin. It was he who, with his team, developed in mid-January one of the first virological tests in the world to screen for patients infected with SARS-CoV-2. He knows this kind of pathogen well. In 2003, the virologist co-discovered SARS-CoV, the "predecessor" of the virus that has spread around the world since the start of 2020.
A podcast every two days
Very quickly, from the first case "imported" in Germany on January 27, the doctor warned against this virus with many unknowns. "The entire medical system in Germany must already prepare for a possible pandemic," he warned the next day in an interview with the site of the Tagesschau television news.
A month later, on February 26, when the number of cases in Germany only increased to 30 patients, he anticipated the fact that "60 to 70%" of the German population could be infected with the coronavirus. "But we don't know when. It could take two years or more, "he said a few days later in the daily Der Berliner Morgenpost. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who draws on her expertise, will publicly take up this quantified estimate on March 11.
It was also on February 26 that Christian Drosten launched his podcast broadcast on the Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) radio station, based in the north of the country. At the rate of an episode every two days on average, he talks for several tens of minutes with a scientific journalist on all aspects of the virus and the disease it causes: risks for children, advice, epidemic situation in the country , etc. The tone, educational, and form, a discussion rather than a real interview, are appreciated by the thousands of Germans who begin to listen to it.
"I'm the bad guy who paralyzes the economy"
It is in this podcast that, in March, the doctor openly worries about the arrival of a "second wave" of the epidemic, possibly more deadly. Still today, Germany is rather spared in terms of mortality compared to its neighbors. 8,540 people have lost their lives in hospitals and retirement homes since the epidemic began on June 1, compared to nearly 30,000 in France.
"If we had not been able to carry out tests so early, if we scientists had not informed the politicians, then I think we would have had 50,000 to 100,000 additional deaths in Germany," estimated Christian Drosten in his interview with Der Spiegel magazine.
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Over the course of his many interventions in talk shows and various programs, people in the street turn around at the sight of his tousled hair. But this status of star virologist, of which Christian Drosten defends himself throughout interviews, as well as his recurrent warnings end up annoying some of his colleagues and part of the opinion. In their eyes, he represents the doctor who announces the bad news and advocates excessive measures to limit the spread of the virus.
"For many Germans, I am the villain who paralyzes the economy," he laments on April 26 in The Guardian, a few days before the gradual lifting of containment measures. He revealed in passing that he was the subject of death threats, which he immediately transmitted to the police.
Compared to Josef Mengele
An additional element appears on April 29. The virologist publishes the provisional results of a study suggesting that a child is as contagious as an adult. While the debate over the reopening of schools is raging on the other side of the Rhine, the subject is potentially explosive. Several scientists dispute the results. On May 25, Drosten revealed on Twitter that the editor of tabloid Bild, the best-selling popular daily in Germany and even in Europe, had given him an hour to respond to these criticisms.
Interesting: die #Bild plant eine tendenziöse Berichterstattung über unsere Vorpublikation zu Viruslasten und bemüht dabei Zitatfetzen von Wissenschaftlern ohne Zusammenhang. Ich soll innerhalb von einer Stunde Stellung nehmen. Ich habe Besseres zu tun. pic.twitter.com/fghG1rdnnq
- Christian Drosten (@c_drosten) May 25, 2020In anti-containment demonstrations in recent weeks, his name is chanted among those whose resignation is requested. The insults are becoming more and more violent. At the end of May, a poster comparing him to the former Nazi doctor Josef Mengele was stuck on a lamppost in the center of Munich.
The abject delirium of some who compare the virologist Christian Drosten (on the left) with the Nazi doctor Mengele #coronavirus pic.twitter.com/mFbnsnAyIW
- Pascal Thibaut (@pthibaut) May 22, 2020Christian Drosten, who fears for his family and three children, immediately lodges a complaint. Especially since he also received by mail on May 26 a blood sample accompanied by this message: "Drink this - You will be immune like that".
However, all these troubles do not seem - for the moment - to unseat him. To Spiegel who asked him about the attacks on the daily Bild, he replied, caustic: "The last time I read an issue of Bild, it was the day when Boris Becker was on the cover after winning Wimbledon". Or more than thirty years ago.