Otto Kolbl Photo: Courtesy of Otto Kolbl
After publishing a paper calling European countries to learn from China in containing the deadly coronavirus in March, Austria scholar Otto Kolbl has since been under attacks from right-wing extremists and some Western media outlets.
"These people who made inappropriate comments on me in the media only read the introduction about me on the internet and they have not even read my article or checked the relevant information with me," Kolbl told the Global Times in an exclusive interview. "Some Western media are like this. When they try to discredit someone, they can always find some reasons, even if the same media has covered our report positively before."
He surmised that the underlying reasons for such negative media coverage are to partly cover up the previous failures of Western academia in judging the pandemic, and partly because of the current proliferation of right-wing extremist movements and ideologies in the West that want to drastically limit the role of the state.
In March, Kolbl, PhD from the University of Lausanne, and Maximilian Mayer from the University of Bonn published the paper
Learning from Wuhan — there is no Alternative to the Containment of COVID-19 in which they encouraged European countries to learn from China in taking more drastic measures to contain the virus.
Kolbl was later appointed as a member of the expert committee of the German Interior Ministry and co-penned a strategic report on how to contain COVID-19.
Kolbl told the Global Times that he has paid attention to the pandemic since the initial outbreak. After they released the article, it garnered more than 10,000 views in several days and garnered widespread attention from governments as well as the world of academia.
"The main reason [for such widespread attention] is we were the first to analyze China's anti-epidemic results in depth and proposed that we should learn from China's anti-epidemic policy. At that time, the mainstream view in the German academic community supported 'herd immunity' and believed that there was no need to close the country to fight the pandemic. Most people can survive the crisis after being infected and recovering. Renowned German 'anti-epidemic star' Christian Drosten was once a supporter of herd immunity. It now appears that such a view is extremely absurd," he said.
He was later invited by the German Interior Ministry to write a paper on fighting COVID-19 together with other experts. They only had four days to complete their first report.
"The hardest part is to let the most influential experts, scholars, and government officials realize the errors of their opinions and change their opinions in a short period of time to start implementing the policies we recommend," he said, adding that since Mid-April 2020, the German government began to accept their opinions.
However, the report has also caused some controversy. Some German media outlets began to question whether he is qualified and some questioned the China-related contents Kolbl referred to. And he was also under attacks from right-wing extremists.
"Since last summer, I have been the target of these people. What is even more frightening is that they are now gaining support from the Western mainstream media. This should make people wary. Not only are a few Western politicians such as former US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson advocating right-wing extremism, Western academia, and mainstream media are also playing an important role in promoting extreme ideology. This is dangerous not only for Western countries but also for the entire world," he said. "I think the Chinese media can play an active role in disseminating truth."
Kolbl told the Global Times that he thought the EU is currently unlikely to import Chinese vaccines. "The biggest resistance does not come from the technical level, but from the ideological level," he said.
He noted that many right-wing extremists in Europe are against vaccination and while refusing to accept how enjoying certain rights and freedoms directly correlates to mass vaccination.
People will still continue to exercise their right to freedom of movement, even if they don't get a vaccine, making the efficacy of a "vaccine passport" rollout limited.
"These people will go their own way even if they do not get vaccinated. So even if the EU 'vaccine passport' is released, the effect will be limited," he said.