According to Health Minister Lauterbach, politicians do not have to ask for forgiveness, but: In retrospect, the fact that schools and daycare centers were closed for so long at the beginning of the pandemic was unnecessary, says the SPD politician today. At that time, however, "the level of knowledge was simply not good enough".
In retrospect, Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach sees the duration of the closures of schools and daycare centers in the corona pandemic as unnecessary. "Keeping it closed for so long" was "a criticism" of the measures afterwards, he said in the ARD "Morgenmagazin". At the same time, Lauterbach pointed out that this corresponded to the recommendations of experts at the time. "So the level of knowledge was just not good enough."
In Germany, many companies were "relatively spared" and could have continued to work normally, said Lauterbach. At the same time, "the children and the schools got into it very hard". In retrospect, the assumption that there were many infections in schools and daycare centers "did not prove to be correct in this form". Other countries "did this a little differently" and set "different priorities".
However, he generally regards a request for "forgiveness" as "difficult" when evaluating corona measures afterwards, Lauterbach added, referring to an earlier statement by his predecessor Jens Spahn. CDU man Spahn said during the pandemic that after the crisis there would be a lot to forgive each other. "The level of knowledge was often not really good enough," said Lauterbach. This is something different than if things had been done wrong on purpose against better knowledge.
Looking to the future, Lauterbach was optimistic about a possible next pandemic: "(...) We are much better prepared, we have learned a lot and we would approach it very differently." In comparison to other countries with a population of a similar age, Germany also got through relatively well.
