2. Christian Drosten & Lothar Wieler (head of RKI) pressured Seehofer to extend the 1st lockdown, which was scheduled to end on Easter 2020. They appear to have acted right at the time the lockdown was announced – before anybody could say anything about its success or failure.
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3. So Seehover got his underling, Staatssekretär Markus Kerber (picrelated) to recruit various scientists from the RKI and other institutes, to produce a scary modelling study that would justify extending the lockdown.pic.twitter.com/0MFJnBBIdv
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4. We only know about this, because some lawyers, among them Niko Härting, forced the German government to disclose over 200 pages of related email correspondence about the genesis of this modelling study.
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5. Remember that Neil Ferguson's notorious Imperial College model was released on 16 March. The German interior minister wanted his own model, just like the Brits. Remember that copying methods and strategies is a common feature of Corona containment policy.
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6. The full text of the emails hasn't been released, as far as I know, but the Welt report contains some quite revealing passages. Kerber told the scientists he wanted a model that would help him plan "measures of a prevantative and repressive nature".pic.twitter.com/rsLIRLrNHt
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7. He demanded that everybody keep the initiative secret & suggested they exchange phone numbers b/c he wasn't sure "whether & how long networks will be reliably functioning" Vry hard to know whether Kerber really thought the lights were about to go out, or he's just an idiotpic.twitter.com/HN26kAOQLr
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8. Within four days the ridiculous modellers had done their hocus-pocus and came up with a secret paper that predicted one million deaths in Germany as a worst-case scenario.pic.twitter.com/lzec2ZHd8r
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Replying to @eugyppius1
Any evidence that they called on Ferguson for support?
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Replying to @HowardSteen4
They didn‘t call on Ferguson personally, as far as I know, but they were advised by a mysterious junior (German) assistant professor in China, Maximilian Mayer, who promoted the Imperial College model as the „gold standard“ in modelling.
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Replying to @eugyppius1 @HowardSteen4
eugyppius Retweeted eugyppius
eugyppius added,
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Mayer has no subject expertise, is professor of International Relations, but he forwards the BMI modellers all kinds of data about the Chinese response (some of which he says is ‚secret‘), the modellers defer to him, give him their materials for critique/corrections, etc.
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