Christian Drosten, head of virology at the Berlin Charité, has no small words for the Covid pandemic: It is the greatest challenge that humanity has had to face in the last 100 years.

The state of emergency brings with it fears, the population is looking for references for orientation.

These are provided by two scientists who were awarded the Hessian Culture Prize on Friday for their services in Corona education: Sandra Ciesek, Director of the Institute for Medical Virology at the University Hospital Frankfurt and Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim, chemist, author and science journalist.

Monika Ganster

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Drosten, who explains the current situation together with Ciesek in the award-winning NDR podcast “Coronavirus Update”, praised the motivation of his colleague: “Anyone who listens to Sandra knows intuitively that she sees science communication as part of her medical duty”, vanity and The need for recognition is alien to her. She can bring the situation to the point with care and empathy, which distinguishes her as an experienced internist with many years of patient contact.

Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim has tapped completely new audience groups with wit and cunning on her YouTube channel maiLab and has been providing information since the beginning of the pandemic. "Thanks to May, the house dust has finally fallen from the natural sciences," says Drosten. It also makes an important contribution to social cohesion and therefore deserves a larger audience, as is now possible with the television program Terra X.

Prime Minister Volker Bouffier (CDU) also emphasized the importance of mediators: Citizens are confused by a polyphonic choir made up of different recommendations for action and expert opinions. Even medical associations contradict each other. “We need people who explain what is developing and how,” emphasized Bouffier. But anyone who dares to go on the public stage has to expect hostility, social media are being misused as an “instrument of incitement and threat”. Therefore, he also honored Ciesek and Nguyen-Kim for their personal courage. Ciesek replied that such an evening would help you to recharge your batteries and carry on. Nguyen-Kim also emphasized that she did not regret having taken this path.

The Heppenheimer Nguyen-Kim had a daughter in January 2020. “That way I always know exactly how long the pandemic has been going on,” she joked. As a mother, she also asked herself how future crises, such as climate change, could be dealt with and how science would be dealt with. To live in a country where there is enough vaccine for everyone is a great privilege and she can “scream into the pillow every day why not everyone wants it”.

The lecturer Ciesek is distinguished by the fact that in her words of thanks she highlighted two of her doctoral students, whose committed work to cope with the pandemic strengthens her confidence in the future.

The virologist, who also puts the mediating word over the judgmental word in her podcasts, finally wrapped her appeal to society in a parable: The corona situation is like a trip together on the high seas, they have made a seaworthy boat out of an old boat but now that a new storm was approaching, passengers and crew seemed to be fleeing below deck.

The ship and its fate seem to have become indifferent to them.

"But we are all sitting together in this boat and will only be able to find calm waters together".