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Ralf Anders's avatar

Yep. Drosten was a co-author of the letter to NEJM claiming asymptomatic spread:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2001468

As you say, later it turned out that the patient had had symptoms. They had not interviewed her. Anthony Fauci, who had previously denied that asymptomatic spread was possible, took the letter and ran with it:

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/31/health/coronavirus-asymptomatic-spread-study/index.html

Drosten later said that he was sorry about how this went:

"I feel bad about how this went, but I don't think anybody is at fault here," says virologist Christian Drosten of the Charité University Hospital in Berlin, who did the lab work for the study and is one of its authors. "Apparently the woman could not be reached at first and people felt this had to be communicated quickly."

https://www.science.org/content/article/paper-non-symptomatic-patient-transmitting-coronavirus-wrong

This is very important as only asymptomatic transmission could raise the spectre of an invisible and ubiquitous threat and thereby provide the basis for the "measures" that followed. Christian Drosten is a very important player.

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PERSISTENT OBJECTOR to new IHR's avatar

And instead of being sorry he could have retracted or amended.

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