Bundestag: Corona Commission hopes for recommendations from citizens

What experiences have citizens had during the Corona period and what conclusions can be drawn from them? These questions are the focus of four dialogue forums to which the Bundestag Study Commission is inviting people to come to terms with the pandemic. She hopes to gain new insights and recommendations, as she did in an earlier round of discussions with young people. The new series begins with an event in Wolfsburg this Saturday with 150 participants.

“The recommendations that the children, teenagers and young adults gave us were really very serious and concrete,” said the commission chairman, Michael Hose (CDU), to the German Press Agency. This is also hoped for from the citizens' forums in Wolfsburg, Halle an der Saale, Ingolstadt and Düsseldorf. “It is important to us that the exchange takes place in a protected space that is not about self-expression on TikTok, but rather about an open dialogue,” emphasized the Thuringian member of the Bundestag. That's why the forums are not public.

The participants were able to apply for the forums. The committee secretariat paid attention to a balanced distribution of professional and age groups. In the end the decision was made by lot.

Final report next year

The study commission consists of 14 representatives and the same number of external experts. Your final report should be available at the end of June 2027. “Our mission is also to reflect the different perspectives on the corona pandemic and its consequences from the population,” said Hose. The experts are of central importance, but so are the experiences of citizens in everyday life.

“Corona had terrible health consequences, but also serious social consequences,” he summarizes. The commission wants to help build bridges again, “even where people fell out during the pandemic and sometimes no longer speak to each other.” He had the impression that this unforgiveness could gradually be overcome.

Should there be school closures in the event of a new crisis?

The commission is looking for answers to questions such as: “How do we deal with vaccinations and school closures in the event of a new pandemic?” The Commission will probably not “find the perfect answer”, but it can provide important suggestions for future action.

“Compared to other countries, the number of corona deaths in Germany was significantly lower,” said the commission chairman. One of the things that went well during the pandemic was the short-time working allowance. This contributed to Germany doing well both economically and in terms of labor market policy.

According to data from the Robert Koch Institute, around 161,500 people with laboratory-confirmed evidence of a Sars-CoV-2 infection in connection with Covid-19 died in the pandemic years 2020 to 2022.