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A patient with Covid-19 is being treated in the hospital
Photo:
Henning Kaiser / dpa
When virologist Christian Drosten says something, many listen up, and that's still the case after a year of the coronavirus pandemic.
However, by no means all of his colleagues are present in the media and share his opinion.
What image you have of the corona crisis wants to clarify a survey that has now taken place for the third time.
Experts from the fields of virology, epidemiology, intensive care and internal medicine were able to take part in the survey.
That only their answers really counted was checked by a few technical questions that had to be answered correctly within a short period of time.
The survey took place "in the context of a visibly heated social climate," write the initiators of the survey from the University of Tübingen and the University Clinic Hamburg Eppendorf (UKE).
This was also reflected in the comments that the participants were able to make.
They would have ranged from "Total lockdown until the summer" to "Don't
Lauterbach
this country".
Create realistic opinion sheets
Michael Schindler from the University Clinic Tübingen and Steffen Moritz, Jürgen Gallinat and Michael Reininger from the UKE were able to evaluate answers from 300 experts.
Schindler sees the survey as a good means of “creating a realistic picture of opinions and also depicting the diversity of opinions”.
The question of which measures are considered to be the most sensible shows, for example, that opinions differ.
While 51 percent of those surveyed stated that the measures should be "tightened and extended", 25 percent supported the statement "quarantine and special protection of people at risk, otherwise public and economic life should return".
In the previous poll, published in May 2020, around a third saw freedom of expression in science threatened.
This time around 30 percent of those questioned agreed with the statement that this was threatened "because certain opinions are not opportune".
However, two thirds rate the reporting as "largely factual and appropriate".
The experts were also asked specifically about a study that caused quite a stir: the well-known statistician John Ioannidis had reported that the death rate from Covid-19 was only 0.27 percent, and 0.05 for under 70-year-olds Percent.
Only 42 percent of those surveyed doubted the numbers.
"I would have expected that they would be classified more critically," says Schindler.
At the same time, the majority refused that Covid-19 was comparable to flu or severe flu.
"But that could also be due to the fact that the clinical pictures differ, especially in severe courses," suspects Schindler.
Is the price too high?
A third of those surveyed agreed that the “price we pay to fight pandemic is too high given the economic and social pressures”.
Do people who are familiar with virology, epidemiology, internal medicine and intensive care medicine actually have the expertise to answer this question?
"They are not the experts at this point, but of course they also form an opinion in the context of their technical experience," says Schindler.
At the same time, almost 70 percent agree with the statement that "the fight for human life is worth it".
The respondents largely agree on one point: a good 88 percent agree that they have no concerns about being vaccinated with one of the corona vaccines.
More than 70 percent of the experts are also not concerned about the rapid approval of RNA vaccines.
And those who hope for some relaxation in the spring can feel confirmed by the opinion: Around two thirds of the respondents assume that the new infections will level off again at a low level from May due to the seasonality.
Christian Drosten has other fears.
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