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2020news.de/amtsrichter-in… 21st January 2021 @_2020news
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'A district judge in Weimar has acquitted a man who was to be fined for violating the Corona contact ban by celebrating his birthday with at least seven other parties from a total of eight..'

..'households, six guests too many under Thüringer's Corona Ordinance. The judge's verdict is scathing [2020news.de/wp-content/upl…]: The Corona Ordinance is unconstitutional and materially objectionable.
For the first time, a judge has dealt intensively with the medical facts,..' ..

..'..the economic consequences and the effects of the specific policy.
Part of the rule of law is the requirement that laws be specific. Laws may not simply make blanket decrees and thus encourage interpretation by the authorities according to their own gusto and thus..'

..'arbitrariness. According to the Infection Protection Act, the "competent authority shall take the necessary protective measures". In the normal course of events, this means that people who are infected or suspected of being infected can be isolated or contaminated premises..'

..'can be closed.
The Infection Protection Act does not provide for a general ban on contact that also covers healthy persons. However, as many administrative courts have argued so far, exceeding the scope of the Infection Protection Act beyond the normal course could be..'

..'justified if it was an "unprecedented event" that was so new that the legislator could not possibly have made the necessary regulations beforehand.
The judge does not accept this excuse: Already in 2013, the Bundestag had a risk analysis on a pandemic caused by a..'

..' .."virus Modi-SARS", which was prepared with the cooperation of the Robert Koch Institute, describing a scenario with 7.5 million (!) deaths in Germany in a period of three years and discussing anti-epidemic measures in such a pandemic (Bundestagsdrucksache 17/12051).' ..

...'The legislator could therefore have examined the regulations of the Infection Protection Act with regard to such an event, which was considered at least "conditionally probable" (probability of occurrence class C), and adapted them if necessary. This policy failure, due to..'

..'which Germany had run into the epidemic practically unprepared - without legal precautions to combat it, without stocks of masks, protective clothing and medical equipment, could not now lead to politics being allowed to close any regulatory gap as it saw fit.
This is..'

..'especially true since an epidemic situation, i.e. the basis for extending the tried and tested infection control regulations, does not (or no longer) exist. The numbers of infected and sick people had already fallen in the spring, so the lockdown had come too late and was..'

..'generally ineffective.
There was no concrete danger of the health care system being overburdened by a "wave" of COVID-19 patients at any time. As can be seen from the DIVI intensive care register newly established on 17.03.2020,at least 40% of intensive care beds in Germany..'

..'were vacant in March and April. In Thüringer, 378 intensive care beds were reported as occupied on 03.04.2020, 36 of which were occupied by COVID-19 patients. This contrasted with 417 (!) free beds. On 16.04.2020, i.e. two days before the decree was issued, 501 intensive..'

..'care beds were reported as occupied, 56 of them with COVID-19 patients. This contrasted with 528 (!) free beds ... The maximum number of COVID-19 patients reported in Thuringia in spring was 63 (28 April), so the number of COVID-19 patients was at no time in a range where..'

..'an overload of the health system would have been feared.
This assessment [initiative-qualitaetsmedizin.de/404] of the actual dangers posed by COVID-19 in spring 2020 is confirmed by an
evaluation of accounting data from 421 clinics of the Quality Medicine Initiative, which came to..'

..'the conclusion that the number of SARI cases (SARI = severe acute respiratory infection) treated as inpatients in Germany in the first half of 2020, with a total of 187,174 cases, was even lower than in the first half of 2019 (221,841 cases), although this also included..'

..'the COVID-related SARI cases. According to this analysis, the number of intensive care cases and ventilator cases was also lower in the first half of 2020 than in 2019.
The death statistics [destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gese…] paint a similar picture. According to a special analysis..'

..'by the Federal Statistical Office, 484,429 people died in Germany in the first half of 2020, compared to 479,415 in the first half of 2019, 501,391 in 2018, 488,147 in 2017 and 461,055 in 2016. According to these figures, there were more deaths in the first half of both..'

..'2017 and 2018 than in 2020.
The scare forecasts that significantly influenced the decision on the lockdown in the spring... were also based on misconceptions about the lethality of the virus (so-called infection fatality rate = IFR) and about an existing or missing basic..'

..'immunity against the virus in the population.
According to a meta-study [who.int/bulletin/onlin…] by the medical scientist and statistician John Ioannidis, one of the most cited scientists worldwide, which was published in a WHO bulletin in October, the lethality rate..'

..'amounts to a median of 0.27%, corrected to 0.23%, and is thus no higher than in moderately severe influenza epidemics.
The judge's conclusion: there were no "unjustifiable gaps in protection" that would have justified recourse to general clauses. These measures would..'

..'have violated human dignity, which is "inviolably guaranteed" in Article 1, paragraph 1 of the Basic Law. This is a massive accusation against the federal government. It is remarkable how coolly the judge in Weimar summarises the months of discussion:
"A general ban on..'

..'contact is a serious encroachment on civil rights. It is one of the fundamental freedoms of people in a free society that they can decide for themselves with which people (assuming they are willing) and under what circumstances they enter into contact. The free encounter..'

..'of people with each other for the most diverse purposes is at the same time the elementary basis of society. The state must refrain from any targeted regulatory and restrictive intervention. The question of how many people a citizen invites to his or her home or..'

..'with how many people a citizen meets in public space to go for a walk, to do sports, to go shopping or to sit on a park bench is of no fundamental interest to the state.
With the ban on contact, the state is attacking the foundations of society - albeit with good intentions..'

..' - by enforcing physical distance between citizens ("social distancing"). In January 2020, hardly anyone in Germany could imagine that the state could forbid them from inviting their parents to their home under the threat of a fine, unless they sent the other members of..'

..' their family out of the house while they were there. Hardly anyone could imagine that three friends could be forbidden to sit together on a park bench. Never before has the state thought of resorting to such measures to combat an epidemic. Even in..'

..'the risk analysis "Pandemic caused by virus Modi- SARS" (BT-Drs. 17/12051), which after all described a scenario with 7.5 million deaths, a general ban on contact (as well as curfews and the extensive shutdown of public life) is not considered. Apart from quarantine of..'

..'contacts of infected persons and isolation of infected persons, only school closures, cancellation of major events and hygiene recommendations are mentioned as anti-epidemic measures (BT-Drs. 17/12051, p. 61f).
In the meantime, a large part of the public has almost come..'

..'to terms with the New Normal. However, according to the judge, what was previously perceived as "normal" is now being reinterpreted as a criminal offence:
"Although it seems that in the months of the Corona crisis there has been a shift in values with the consequence..'

..'that events previously regarded as absolutely exceptional are now perceived by many people as more or less 'normal', which of course also changes the view of the Basic Law, there should in itself be no doubt, according to what has been said, that with a general ban on..'

..'contact the democratic constitutional state is violating a taboo - hitherto regarded as completely self-evident.
In addition to this, and as an aspect to be considered separately, it should be noted that with the general ban on contact, the state treats every citizen as..'

..'a potential danger to the health of third parties for the purpose of protecting against infection. If every citizen is regarded as a risk from which others must be protected, he is at the same time deprived of the possibility to decide which risks he exposes himself to,..'

..'which is a fundamental freedom. Whether the citizen visits a café or bar in the evening and accepts the risk of infection with a respiratory virus for the sake of sociability and joie de vivre, or whether she is more cautious because she has a weakened immune system and..'

..'therefore prefers to stay at home, is no longer left up to her to decide if a general ban on contact applies.”

The district judge meticulously examines studies that show how ineffective the contact ban is. He weighs the restrictions on freedom against the fact that..'

..'protection has been neglected in old people's homes, while the less vulnerable population is no longer allowed on the streets.
At the same time, the judge deals intensively with the collateral damage of the lockdown decisions, which is now becoming increasingly apparent:'..

'(1) Loss of profits/profits of businesses/tradesmen/freelancers, which are direct consequences of the restrictions on freedom addressed to them.

(2) Profit losses/losses of companies/artisans/freelancers that are indirect consequences of the lockdown measures ..'

'..(e.g. profit losses of suppliers of directly affected companies; profit losses resulting from the disruption of supply chains and e.g. leading to production losses; profit losses resulting from travel restrictions).'

'(3) Wage and salary losses due to short-time work or unemployment.

(4) Bankruptcies/destruction of livelihoods

(5) Consequential costs of bankruptcies/destruction of livelihoods

The data basis for the analysis comes from an expert report by Prof. Murswiek. In the summer,..'

..' Murswiek argued that the March lockdown was only partially constitutional. He also said that general assembly bans were not compatible with the Basic Law. Above all, the federal government had decided without a comprehensible factual basis & had not presented..'

..' a cost-benefit analysis.
The devastating consequences of the Corona policy
"Most of these damages will be fairly identifiable. They are certainly gigantic in total. One gets an idea of their magnitude when one considers the sums that the state injects into the economic..'

..'cycle as Corona aid. The "Corona shield" decided by the federal government comprises 353.3 billion euros in subsidies and an additional 819.7 billion euros in guarantees, i.e. a total of over 1 trillion euros. As the federal government says, this is the largest aid package..'

..'in Germany's history. Added to this is aid from the Länder. Since the state aid largely comprises loans or loan guarantees, they are not necessarily matched by correspondingly high losses in the private sector.
On the other hand, the private losses will in any case be much..'

..'greater than the state compensation or aid money paid as lost subsidies.
Never before in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany has economic damage of this magnitude been caused by a state decision. As far as the assessment of the damage to the private sector..'

..' and private households is concerned, it must be taken into account that the losses have been or will be compensated in part by state benefits. The state benefits thus reduce the economic damage to private economic entities. However, they do not reduce the overall..'

..'economic damage, because they burden the public budgets and thus ultimately the taxpayers. These costs should not be ignored when calculating the disadvantages of the lockdown.
As further consequences, the judge lists..'

..' and documents:
The increase in domestic violence against children and women
Increase in depression as a result of social isolation
Anxiety psychosis/anxiety disorders as a result of Corona-.
Anxiety and other mental disorders/nervous overload due to..'

..' family/personal/professional problems as a result of the lockdown
Increase in suicides, for example as a result of unemployment or insolvency health impairments as a result of lack of exercise
..

..'Omission of operations and in-patient treatment because hospital beds were reserved for corona patients
Omission of operations, in-patient treatment, doctor's visits because patients feared infection with Covid-19.

The judge's conclusion is serious, and in another point..'

..'he also mentions the damage caused in many countries in the South that are economically dependent on Germany:
"Having said the above, there can be no doubt that the number of deaths alone attributable to the measures of the lockdown policy exceeds many times over ..'

..'the number of deaths prevented by the lockdown. For this reason alone, the norms to be assessed here do not satisfy the proportionality requirement. In addition, there are the direct and indirect restrictions of freedom, the gigantic financial damages, the immense health..'

..' damages and the non-material damages. The word "disproportionate" is too colourless to even hint at the dimensions of what is happening. The lockdown policy pursued by the state government in the spring (and now again), of which the general ban on contact was (and is)..'

..' an essential component, is a catastrophically wrong political decision with dramatic consequences for almost all areas of people's lives, for society, for the state and for the countries of the Global South."
@CoronaAusschuss
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