[News] Coronavirus in Germany: Christian Drosten, Angela Merkel's consulting scientist who breaks po[CENSORED]rity records

[Dr.Drako]

German scientist Christian Drosten is not only one of the world's leading coronavirus experts. It has also become the current pandemic in a whole media star in your country.
 

Its podcast, simply called "Das Coronavirus Update", or "Coronavirus Update", is the most po[CENSORED]r on the iTunes list not only in Germany but in Austria.

A page on Instagram of "Drosten fans" even reveals the scientist's memes.
 

In one of them the image of the expert appears along with others of the actor Jeff Goldblum with the message "he fought dinosaurs and aliens, so I have confidence in him with the virus."
 

Drosten is director of the Virology Institute at the prestigious Charité Hospital in Berlin. And he is recognized as one of the three scientists who discovered the SARS virus, another type of coronavirus that in 2002-2003 infected about 8,000 people in about 30 countries and caused about 800 deaths.

Since the covid-19 began its meteoric expansion on the planet, the expert advises the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, on the pandemic. And the diagnostic test created by his laboratory is now used in many countries around the world.
 

One reason for the podcast's success "could be that, in these uncertain times, it makes us feel good that someone seems to have at least some of the answers," Holger Wormer, professor of journalism at Dortmund Technical University, told BBC News.
 

Drosten's podcast offers the public a unique opportunity: ask an expert who has been on the front lines of the coronavirus fight for years.

The discovery of the SARS virus

Drosten grew up in a family of farmers in northern Germany.

He studied medicine in Frankfurt, was a professor at the University of Bonn and shortly afterwards director of the Institute of Virology at that academic center.
 

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In 2002 the scientist was working in the molecular diagnostic laboratory of the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg when he received blood samples from a Singapore doctor.
 

The doctor, who had traveled to Germany, had symptoms similar to those of a new respiratory disease that was spreading throughout Asia and which the World Health Organization (WHO) had just dubbed "severe acute respiratory syndrome" or SARS, due to its acronym in English.

Drosten discovered that it was an unknown enemy, a new member of the coronavirus family. Almost at the same time two experts in other centers reached the same conclusion, J.S. Malik Peiris at the University of Hong Kong and Larry J. Anderson at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States.
 

The German scientist also played a central role in the fight against another epidemic caused by a coronavirus, the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), which has caused more than 800 deaths since 2012 according to the WHO.

Drosten collaborated with researchers in Saudi Arabia where the first case of MERS was identified and his laboratory in Bonn developed a test to detect the presence of the virus causing the disease.
 

In 2017, the expert began working at the Charité Hospital. In January 2020, shortly after researchers in China released the first covid-19 virus genome, their laboratory in Berlin was the first to produce a diagnostic test.
 

That same month, the WHO released the test protocol on its website, allowing other countries to produce their own tests to diagnose the disease.

 

What motivated an expert like Drosten, in the front line of the current pandemic, to devote part of his time faithfully to a podcast?
 

“I used to appear on television often, but the way they shorten and cut your statements makes the message completely diluted. That frustrated me, ”Drosten told the German press.
 

The idea for the podcast came from Norbert Grundei, producer of the German public radio station NDR.

Grundei felt that the public was not being well informed about the covid-19 threat, despite "having one of the world's leading experts on the virus here."
 

It was then that the producer decided to contact Drosten with the idea of a podcast and the response was immediate.

“Just three hours later he answered me saying‘ Now I am on the street but I think it is a good idea. I can start on Monday, ’” Grundei told reporters.
 

Three days after that call, the first episode of "Das Coronavirus Update" was already available.

"You can talk and they don't cut what you say"

Drosten reportedly insisted on having enough time to respond, so his explanations may take several minutes.

For Holger Wormer, the style of the podcast "is somewhat dated, a scientist explains for 30 or 45 minutes with comparatively few questions."
 

"I think that without the extremely high interest that already existed due to the pandemic, not so many people would listen to a format that is quite complicated for the general public."

The podcast is divided into two parts, in the first one a scientific journalist interviews the expert, and in the second he answers questions from the public.
 

For Drosten, the appeal of a podcast compared to other formats is that "you can talk more and they don't cut what you say to leave something out, making it more authentic communication."
 

The podcast started out daily but is now broadcast twice a week and lasts from half an hour to about 50 minutes. With about 40 episodes, "Das Coronavirus Update" continues to have an average of one million downloads per program.
 

"I only drink bottled beer"

Drosten answers questions about all aspects of the pandemic in his podcast.
 

Her measured way of expressing herself has been compared to that of Angela Merkel, who has a PhD in Physics and is known for including scientific explanations in her messages.
 

In a recent episode, someone asked Drosten for his opinion on a well-known scientist's suggestion that the covid-19 virus was created in a genetically engineered laboratory.
 

The expert replied: “Well, it is difficult for a scientist in the field of virology to say that a Nobel Prize winner in the same field is saying nonsense. But what he said is complete nonsense. "

Drosten also offers advice. In March, he recommended that the public never drink beer served directly from the tap in bars, because the glasses are often not clean.

 

"I have only had bottled beer for many years," he said.
 

But the scientist also knows its limitations. And he pointed out that he would not have accepted the idea of the podcast if it were a topic that he does not know in depth.
 

"I can only do this podcast because it is on the subject that I work on," he said.

Threats of death

Drosten's po[CENSORED]rity and his advice to Merkel have also caused problems.
 

In an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian, Drosten pointed out that some people in Germany "because they don't see the overflowing hospitals, they don't understand why they should have closed the stores."

"For them I am the villain who is paralyzing the economy."
 

"I have received death threats, which I have passed on to the police," added the scientist.
 

"But I am more concerned with other emails, those of those who write to me saying they have three children and are worried about the future ... Those are the messages that keep me awake at night."
 

Comparison with Stephen Hawking

When Drosten started his podcast on February 26, there were fewer than 30 confirmed cases of covid-19 in Germany. Currently the number of deaths in that country exceeds 7,000 and questions to virology experts seem more necessary than ever.

 

In times of pandemic, the eagerness to hear scientists directly is not a phenomenon unique to Germany.

Experts like Anthony Fauci in the United States or Anders Tegnell in Sweden have become extremely po[CENSORED]r figures in their countries.
 

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But Wormer points out that in a democracy, "I would not want to do without the counterpart of good journalists who critically examine what both politicians and scientists say."
 

Wormer compares Drosten to British physicist Stephen Hawking.

 

Edited May 19, 2020 by YaKuZa--BoSs
Closed Topic/complete 1 day.