Publish and Perish?

As young scientists, my colleagues and I felt threatened by a sword of Damocles inscribed "publish or perish."

Drosten's study on infectious children was grossly wrong (©Bild)

Last week, reporter Filipp Piatov of the tabloid daily Bild tried to modify the "publish and perish" threat. He confronted Germany's Dr. Fauci, Professor Christian Drosten, with critical comments by medical peers on one of Drosten's preprints on the Corona contagiousness of children.

Virologist Christian Drosten was wrong with his study (©Bild)

A colleague from his own newspaper, Bild, interviewed Filipp Piatov "scientifically." Pistol made his request in an email without informing the authors of his sources. He presented Professor Drosten with an ultimatum to answer his queries within one hour.

Drosten published Piatov's impertinent email, commenting, "I have better things to do."

Applause came not only from Drosten's peers, who distanced themselves from quotations of their words that, according to them, were taken out of context.

In a tweet, Professor Lauterbach supported Drosten, too, but could not hold back a small side blow, "There is also jealousy among colleagues."

The aim of the Bild reporter clearly was to destroy Drosten's reputation as a scientist and thus diminish his influence on Germany's Corona policy.

Layman Filipp Piatov has no clue about scientific work. Unlike politicians, serious scientists will continuously question their level of knowledge, evaluate further findings, and draw new conclusions. What was right yesterday can be wrong today, and vice versa. This is how scientific progress is made.

All published results are subject to scrutiny by peer scientists. In case of doubt, results are checked by performing similar experiments.

In the meantime, the Twitter fight between Drosten and Bild escalated in a new headline misleading the reader: "Schulen und Kitas wegen falscher Corona-Studie dicht" (Schools and Daycare Centers Closed Due to False Corona Study).

Sascha Lobo had the decisive argument. While schools and daycare centers were already closed on March 16, the preprint of Drosten's study was only published on April 29.

Dixit Lauterbach, "If Drosten continues to be open, clear, and transparent with his scientific results without twisting them, he will survive. Because he is an honest person and a top-class scientist."

Right or wrong, too little is known about the Sars-CoV-2 virus. Presently, only experience will show whether sending kids back to school will soon lead to new outbreaks of Covid-19. Better safe than sorry.

The Weatherman/woman Phenomenon

In comparing weather forecasts with the "actual" weather, Red Baron generally notes that the latter is nearly always better than the forecast, so weathermen/women are rarely criticized. In the olden days, bearers of lousy tiding were often executed. Have weather people kept this archaic instinct?

In the same boat with the political heavyweights:
Christian Drosten is approached in demos (©dpa/Christoph Schmidt)

Presently, those who like to maintain or defend the restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic are being attacked by many who cite the decreasing number of new infections.

Recently, Professor Lauterbach criticized the rapid loosening of the rules in restaurants and pubs. Aerosols are created in closed rooms by breathing out and coughing, so sufficient air circulation must be provided.

Drink, and you will be immune.

In fact, both Drosten and Lauterbach received death threats.

Some Professors Tell Nonsense to the World

Drosten complains about the many contributions of experts in social media, such as videos with millions of hits and are full of nonsense. "Some authors are doctors and professors who are putting nonsense into the world, who have never worked on these topics... but they regard themselves as experts because of their academic grade."

He doesn't understand why researchers from other scientific fields don't stick to their areas of expertise: "I would never dare to reveal anything about bacteria with so much conviction." Although it is generally believed that viruses and bacteria are "almost the same thing," scientists know this is not the case.

"These self-proclaimed experts spread generalities that do not go beyond the information level of college textbooks. This is how you bolster the really dangerous conspiracy theorists. I get their echo back in the form of accusations."

A New Song, a Better Song!

We Germans are a nation of thinkers and skeptics. Many Corona debates take a Romantic touch. Instead of basing our thinking on rational, scientific grounds, we place personal feelings and individual freedom in the foreground.

When Governor Bodo Ramelow proposed replacing the strict Corona rules in his state of Thuringia with a system of voluntary behavior, one columnist wrote, "Ramelow sounds like a verse from Heinrich Heine's Romantic epic poem 'Germany, a Winter's Tale.'"

A new song, a better song! It sounds like flutes and violins! The misery is over, The death bells are silent.

Ein neues Lied, ein besseres Lied! Es klingt wie Flöten und Geigen! Das Miserere ist vorbei, Die Sterbeglocken schweigen.

Superspreader

Evolutionary biologist Jamie Lloyd-Smith of the University of California told the journal Science, "There are strong hints that most of those infected with Sars-CoV-2 do not infect anyone. Rather, a few probably infect a great many people."

To quantify this, we need a new parameter, the dispersion factor k. The smaller k is, the more infections can be attributed to the so-called superspreader or one person.

The factor k describes the frequency with which infections occur. The lower the number, the fewer people spread the pathogen. This means that the smaller the dispersion factor, the easier it is to control an epidemic. A dispersion factor 0.1 means that nine out of ten patients only infect one person at a time, but every tenth person infects ten others. Therefore, the probability of an infected person triggering a super spreading event, in which many people are quickly infected, is one in ten. With such a low factor, an epidemic could even come to a standstill. Drosten claims, "Superspreaders played a decisive role in the 2002/2003 Sars pandemic because the dispersion factor k was about 0.1. Such a low value opens up opportunities for new strategies in fighting an epidemic."

Drosten continued, "With Sars-CoV-2, the initial opinion was that superspreaders played no or only a minor role since the upper airways are also affected, and patients are already contagious before the first symptoms appear. Recently, however, new preliminary studies strongly suggest that the dispersion factor might also be small to very small in the present pandemic."

Catholic or Protestant?

Drosten's colleague, Berlin virologist Alexander Kekulé, contradicts him, "These new studies are based on a rather thin database; presumably, k for Sars-CoV-2 is not as low as in the first Sars pandemic." Kekulé considers a Chinese preliminary study by Gabriel Leung to be very robust. The University of Hong Kong team has calculated that 20 cases are responsible for 80 percent of infections. This corresponds to a dispersion factor as high as 0.45.

Drosten on Outdoor Areas

Restaurants' outdoor areas are relatively safe, and "a two-meter distance will probably not be necessary. What is spread via aerosols is blown away. The danger of infection is, therefore, largely eliminated. For indoor spaces, it is essential to open the windows."

For creating outdoor areas, Drosten suggests a bit less bureaucracy in these unusual times, "Why don't we allow proprietors to use the sidewalks? In these times, local authorities can make exceptions and say that the pubs will put their tables on the sidewalk - as long as they don't endanger passers-by."

Turning Parking Spaces into Parklets

©Joachim Röderer/BZ

Drosten's suggestion was well received in Freiburg, where the administration did not turn swords into plowshares but instead turned parking spaces into parklets. These are temporarily reconfigured parking spaces that serve as extensions for outdoor areas of restaurants, ice cream parlors, or pubs.

Parklet test: On Friday evening, Lord Mayor Martin Horn and Mayors Stefan Breiter
 and Martin Haag in front of O'Kelly's on Sedanstraße (©Joachim Röderer/BZ)

Parklets is a strange new German word, but does it mean little parks? The more fitting Biergartenlets would be too long to become popular.

Corona Eyewash

Mass temperature checks on people are frequently used to filter out infected persons. 

Fever screening at Milan Airport (©BZ)

These tests are superficial and misleading, for many bearers of Covid-19 don't show increased body temperatures.

Cleaning the streets of Moscow (©ap)

They are mostly eyewash, as the general cleaning of surfaces. Spreading tons of disinfectants will harm the environment more than kill viruses.

Volunteers disinfecting a church in Mendota, California, in March 
(©Max Whittaker for The New York Times)

Frequent hand washing can damage the skin. According to Professor Drosten, hand washing is of secondary importance as protection against Sars-CoV-2. However, washing hands will significantly reduce the risk of other infections.

By Now, It Is Fake News for the US

The WHO has a shattering corona prognosis, "The virus may never be defeated and will stay with us."

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