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let’s see if the courts/gov’t “yoyo” again…

[DE:EN] https://2020news.de/zwei-neue-urteile-die-luft-wird-duenner/
A report by Erik R. Fisch

Now it is getting tight and ever tighter for the governments, which have continued to commit themselves to a strict and increasingly strict lockdown regime. Two current judgments call the measures into question.

A ruling was passed in Belgium today that the government must withdraw all measures to contain Covid-19 within 30 days. Reason: insufficient legal basis. The League for Human Rights had won the judgment in the first instance before the administrative court in Brussels, as the Wiener Zeitung reported.

There are currently strict corona requirements in the country. Belgians are only allowed to have close contact with someone outside their own household. A maximum of four people wearing a mask are allowed to meet outdoors. You need an appointment for shopping. The doors of the restaurants, pubs and cafes have been closed for months. There is a curfew at night and you are not allowed to enter or leave Belgium without a valid reason.

It is questionable whether the government will adhere to the ruling. In the event of an infringement, she has been fined € 5,000 per day, up to a maximum of € 200,000. A sum that is unlikely to prevent the government from continuing its regime of measures. Too much is at stake for them. It is to be expected that she will appeal, although this has no suspensive effect.

Despite the low “sentence” and despite the fact that the judges only adhered to formal aspects – lack of legal basis – this judgment is another important signal towards the end of the measure.

The decision of the Viennese administrative judge Dr. Frank of March 24, 2021, who was called to decide on the legality of a ban on demonstrations on January 31, 2021 in Vienna.

With regard to state statements on the pandemic entitled “Information from a health perspective”, the judge stated: “The Vienna City Health Service uses the words“ number of cases ”,“ test results ”,“ case events ”and“ number of infections ”. This confusion of terms does not do justice to a scientific assessment of the epidemic situation. For the WHO (WHO Information Notice for IVD Users 2020/05, Nucleic acid testing (NAT) technologies that use polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for detection of SARS-CoV-2, January 20, 2021) the number of infections / sick people is decisive and not those who tested positive or other “case numbers”. This leaves it open as to which figures the “information” is based on. The “Information” refers to the recommendation of the Corona Commission of January 21, 2021. In the absence of information, it is not understandable whether the figures on which this recommendation is based only include those people who were examined in accordance with the guidelines of the WHO for the interpretation of PCR tests of January 20, 2021. Specifically, it is not shown what CT value a test result had, whether a person tested without symptoms was retested and then clinically examined. The WHO follows the inventor of the PCR tests,… (https://www.youtube.com/watch?…). Mutatis mutandis he is saying that a PCR test is not suitable for diagnosis and therefore does not say anything on its own about the disease or infection of a person.

According to a 2020 study (Bullard, J., Dust, K., Funk, D., Strong, JE, Alexander, D., Garnett, L., … & Poliquin, G. (2020). Predicting infectious severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 from diagnostic samples. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 71 (10), 2663-2666.) a virus capable of replicating is no longer detectable with CT values ​​greater than 24 and a PCR test is not suitable for determining the infectivity. ”

The judge also writes: “If one proceeds from the definitions of the Minister of Health,” Case definition Covid-19 “from December 23, 2020, then a” confirmed case “1) is any person with evidence of SARS-CoV-2-specific nucleic acid (PCR- Test, note), regardless of clinical manifestation or 2) every person with SARS-CoV-2 specific antigen that meets the clinical criteria or 3) every person with detection of SARS-CoV-specific antigen that meets the epidemiological criteria Fulfills.

Thus none of the three “confirmed cases” defined by the Minister of Health meets the requirements of the WHO concept of “sick / infected person”.

The WHO refuses to rely solely on the PCR test (confirmed case 1), see above. ”

The judge also takes a critical view of the antigen tests: “The focus on an antigen determination with clinical criteria (confirmed case 2) leaves open whether the clinical evaluation has been carried out by a doctor to whom it is exclusively reserved; maW: whether a person is sick or healthy must be determined by a doctor (cf. § 2 Paragraph 2 Z 1 and 2 Medical Act 1998, Federal Law Gazette I. No. 169/1998 as amended by Federal Law Gazette I No. 31/2021) .

With regard to the antigen tests, it should also be noted that if the symptoms are absent, they are highly flawed. Nevertheless, the Corona Commission relies exclusively on antigen tests for the current analyzes (see Monitoring the Covid-19 protective measures, short report January 21, 2021).

An antigen test confirms a case (3) even if a contact follow-up to the person to be confirmed was successful. This means that two people who have met antigen-positive tests at once become a confirmed case even without clinical manifestations and without a PCR test using the WHO guidelines.

Should the Corona Commission have based the case definition of the Minister of Health and not that of the WHO; so any determination of the numbers for “sick / infected” is wrong. ”

The judge criticizes the administrative action on the basis of questioned assessments of secondary sources as well as the temporal correlation of test expansions and increasing case numbers.

He writes: “In addition, it is pointed out that even when using the case numbers according to the definition of the WHO, the respective models of the epidemic occurrence and the relation of the numbers are decisive for a correct assessment. Both in the evaluation criteria and in the current risk assessment of the Corona Commission of January 21, 2021, there are only secondary sources. Reference is made to AGES (Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety) and GÖG (Health Austria GmbH). Reports from them are evidently used unchecked and the scientific sources they used for this purpose, as well as statistical prognostic methods, are not mentioned. It was particularly noteworthy that the sharp rise in the number of cases is due not least to the sharp rise in tests.

Overall, with regard to the “information” from the City of Vienna’s health service and the grounds for the prohibition notice based on it, it should be noted that there are no valid and evidence-based statements and findings on the epidemic.

This is underlined by the “Limitations” of the Corona Commission, stating “No conclusions can be drawn about the effectiveness of individual measures, since it can be assumed that they interact with one another and influence one another in terms of their effects.”