Gérard Krause

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Gérard Krause (born 1965[1]) is a German epidemiologist. He is currently based at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig.[2]

Career[]

After obtaining a doctoral degree in tropical medicine at the University of Heidelberg and several stints as medical doctor and specialist in tropical medicine, Krause moved in 2000 to the Robert Koch Institute,[1] where he worked as an epidemiologist.[3] In 2005 he obtained his habilitation at the Charité in the fields of epidemiology and hygiene. He participated in the successful containment of the Western African Ebola virus epidemic of 2014/2015.[1] As of 2017, he led the SORMAS (Surveillance, Outbreak Response Management and Analysis System) project at the HZI.[4] SORMAS is an open source software for early recording of infectious diseases (that is, surveillance) and the steering of subsequent pandemic protection measures.[5] It was later rolled out in other countries including France, Switzerland and Fiji, performing infection surveillance for more than 270 million people.[6]

The SORMAS software was extended during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany by a module specifically tailored to the disease, and was expected to help reduce the effort in contact tracing and follow-up of infection chains by health authorities at the district level.[6]

COVID-19 pandemic[]

During the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, Krause joined the advisory committee of the federal government and state premiers. During that time, he became known to a wider audience through his contact with the media. The weekly Der SPIEGEL described him in January 2021 as an advocate of very targeted measures. Krause repeatedly called for better protection of the elderly from the disease. He has been a critic of the threshold value of 50 infections per 100,000 residents in the past seven days as indicator for anti-pandemic measures, and called for the inclusion of other indicators, such as the number of available beds in intensive care.[7]

In an August 2020 interview with Deutschlandfunk, at a time when cases in Germany began to rise again, Krause called for particular attention to the degree of increase in serious cases and deaths, and for adequate protection of those particularly likely to become serious ill from the disease; public attention to this matter was, in his eyes, highly insufficient.[8] Commenting in Der SPIEGEL on the decision of the German government on 28 October to impose a partial lockdown for November, Krause said that the protection of high-risk groups posed a challenge which society had to be ready to meet.[2] On 19 April 2021, he doubted the benefits of the night curfew from 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. that was mulled by the federal government, citing the situation in France, where the curfew had been sidestepped through overnight stays after visits outside of the curfew times. He opined against the loosening of the vaccination prioritization before the vaccination of high-risk groups. Instead of the number of reported infections as indicator for pandemic measures, as favored by the federal and state governments, he proposed to use the number of those who fell ill – in particular those requiring intensive care –, arguing that the number of reported infections was bound to increase anyway due to the desirable ramping up of coronavirus testing.[9]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c Weiner, Melanie; Sagener, Nicole (2 October 2020). "Das sind die führenden Corona-Experten in Deutschland" (in German). T-Online. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b Rydlink, Katherine (29 October 2020). "Epidemiologe fordert klare Konzepte zum Schutz von Risikogruppen". Der Spiegel / dpa (in German). Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  3. ^ Turner, Marian (12 September 2011). "Germany learns from E. coli outbreak". Nature. doi:10.1038/news.2011.530doi:10.1038/news.2011.530. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  4. ^ "Neues Epidemie-Management-System bekämpft Affenpocken-Ausbruch in Nigeria (Pressemitteilung des DZIF)". www.dzif.de/ (in German). 15 December 2017. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  5. ^ Krause, Gérard; Walter, Christin; Dörrbecker, Juliane (2020). "Mobile Seuchenüberwachung: Dem Weg der Viren auf der Spur". Deutsches Ärzteblatt (in German).
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b "Corona: SORMAS soll Arbeit der Gesundheitsämter vereinfachen" (in German). Norddeutscher Rundfunk. 23 December 2020. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  7. ^ Römer, Jörg; Merlot, Julia (18 January 2021). "Diese acht Fachleute beraten Bundesregierung und Länderchefs". Der Spiegel (in German). Retrieved 3 June 2021.
  8. ^ Fuchs, Thorsten (15 August 2020). ""Das alleinige Schauen auf Infektionszahlen ist problematisch" (Interview with Gérard Krause)" (in German). Deutschlandfunk. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  9. ^ Barkey, Sophie (19 April 2021). "Corona-Maßnahmen: Epidemiologe zweifelt am Sinn von Ausgangssperren". Berliner Zeitung / dpa (in German). Retrieved 27 May 2021.

External links[]

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