Original title: AN OFFICIAL GERMAN REPORT HAS LEAKED DECLARING THE CORONA IS A ”GLOBAL FALSE ALARM”
On 08.06.2020, the portal Sloboden Svet published an article titled “AN OFFICIAL GERMAN REPORT HAS LEAKED DECLARING THE CORONA IS A ”GLOBAL FALSE ALARM”, where it makes a manipulative claim about COVID-19. The article names a report, allegedly prepared by a scientific commission appointed by the German Ministry of Interior, declared the pandemic with COVID-19 a “global false alarm” and had been uncovered by a former ministry employee.
The link to the original article can be found here.
The published article is a manipulation, in which false claims are inserted.
The article states that “the federal government of Germany and the mainstream media are engaged in controlling the damage caused by the report which denies the established narrative about the Coronavirus leaked from the Ministry of the Interior.”
The document, which was used to mislead the public towards a wrong conclusion, was not released by the German Ministry of Interior. The scientific commission from the mentioned ministry, nor any other unit from the indicated ministry, did not participate in its preparation. The document is a personal opinion of a person employed in the ministry, along with several independent scientists. Together, they publicly distributed the document without authorization from the Ministry.
The published thesis in this article is manipulative. The COVID-19 pandemic still affects people globally worldwide. A full analysis that incorporates both health and economic impacts is likely to require a much longer period of time and more massive data collection that will need to be analyzed in detail.
The German government does not agree with the assessments that are part of this personal analysis.
The published text that we are analyzing, incompletely presents a document that was originally published on 09.05.2020 on the web portal Tichys Einblick and it claims that the document leaked from the German Ministry of Interior. The document claims that “the COVID-19 crisis is a false alarm.”
The author of this document is Stephan Kohn, a political scientist who was employed by the German Ministry of Interior in the KM-4 Department for Protection of Critical Infrastructure. But the report was not requested by the Ministry of Interior.
On May 10, the German Ministry of Interior said in a press release that the employee had published his “private opinion on the management of the coronavirus crisis” and that “the whole research was conducted without delegated powers and responsibilities.”
Three days after the press release, federal Home Secretary Horst Seehofer, on the press conference about border control measures introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic said that the employee had abused state resources to expand his stance, due to which he has been suspended and is facing disciplinary proceedings.
The article subject to our analysis states that “the 93-page report entitled “Crisis Management Analysis” was allegedly prepared by a scientific committee appointed by the Ministry of Interior and composed of external medical experts from several German universities.
The report was initiated by the Department of Interior, called the KM4 Unit, which is responsible for “Protecting Critical Infrastructure”. This is where the German official representative, Stephan Kohn, worked, and from where he provided the data to the media, playing the role of a whistleblower.
The report’s authors issued a joint press release already on May 11, urging the government to ignore expert advice and urging the interior minister to officially comment on the experts’ joint statement.”
What the public should know is that none of the associates who participated in this research was appointed by the German Ministry of Interior, as stated in the article, nor is their opinion used as expert and advisory in the Ministry. In addition, the commission that drafted the report does not include virologists or epidemiologists, whose expertise would be based on such an analysis. What is presented in the document is manipulative, rather than scientifically based on facts.
An accurate estimate of mortality as a result of COVID-19 will certainly require additional time and further study. The current data of the European mortality monitoring network “EuroMOMO” indicate that the pandemic caused about 170,000 deaths in 24 European countries, which appear as partners. Europe is not the only country affected by COVID-19. The United States is recording a huge number of deaths during the pandemic peak. Most affected, according to the data, are primarily in the age group of ≥65 years, but also in the age group of 45-64 years, and even in the age group of 15-44 years.
The pandemic has sparked a wave of restrictive measures globally. But despite the restrictions, the virus resulted in more than 400,000 deaths worldwide, according to the WHO.
As of May 10, Germany had recorded 7,755 deaths, which is much less than its European neighbors, according to WHO data. This suggests that the government’s chosen measures have had an effect, i.e. saved lives. This is shown by scientific studies. The effects of social distancing are scientifically supported.
German fact-checkers have also exposed this manipulation.
The F2N2 team assesses this article as manipulative. The aim of the article is to convince the public that coronavirus is similar to influenza or a similar viral disease. In addition, untrue allegations have been made that the investigation was commissioned by the German Interior Ministry, which is not true.
