1. Karl Lauterbach is professor of health economics and epidemiology at the University of Cologne.
21 Facts About Karl Lauterbach
1. 2.
Karl Lauterbach was a CDU member for several years before joining the SPD in 2001.
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From 1998 until 2005, Karl Lauterbach served as the director of the Institute of Health Economics and Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Cologne.
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Karl Lauterbach was a member of the Sachverstandigenrat zur Begutachtung der Entwicklung im Gesundheitswesen from 1999 until he was elected to the Bundestag in September 2005.
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Karl Lauterbach was appointed adjunct professor at the Harvard School of Public Health in 2008.
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Karl Lauterbach was part of the governing coalition until 2009, when his party went into opposition.
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Karl Lauterbach has since been serving on the German Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and Consumer Protection and its Subcommittee on European Law.
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Karl Lauterbach served as an advisor of Chancellor Angela Merkel during the pandemic.
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In December 2021, Karl Lauterbach was designated as Federal Minister of Health in the traffic light coalition.
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Karl Lauterbach assumed the office on 8 December 2021 when the Scholz cabinet was formally appointed by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
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However, Karl Lauterbach said that he expected the country to suffer from a vaccine shortage in the first quarter.
12.
On 16 February 2022, Karl Lauterbach said that German federal government will be easing COVID-19 restrictions alongside two neighboring countries, Austria and Switzerland, in the following words: "We can withdraw the restrictions step-by-step, but we should continue to be careful".
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However, on 28 March 2022 despite Germany reported 305,000 COVID-19 Deltacron cases, Karl Lauterbach said that Germany will be lifted all COVID-19 restrictions up by 8 April, although COVID infections was "no longer increasing".
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On 14 April 2022, German federal prosecutors announced publicly that they had detained four people suspected of plotting to kidnap Karl Lauterbach and destroy power facilities to cause a nationwide power outage.
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On 18 May 2022, Karl Lauterbach announced government plans to spend an additional 830 million euros on COVID-19 vaccines.
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On 26 October 2022, Karl Lauterbach presented a cornerstone paper on planned legislation to regulate the controlled distribution and consumption of cannabis for recreational purposes among adults.
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On 28 November 2022, Karl Lauterbach was said to be one of the main targets of a suspected terrorist group of conspirators that was rounded up by German federal police.
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In October 2023, Karl Lauterbach participated in the first joint cabinet retreat of the German and French governments in Hamburg, chaired by Scholz and President Emmanuel Macron.
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Karl Lauterbach was one of the authors of a cross-party initiative in 2021 to liberalize the legal framework for assisted suicide in Germany, along with Swen Schulz, Otto Fricke, Katrin Helling-Plahr and Petra Sitte,.
20.
In May 2021, several months ahead of the national elections, Karl Lauterbach admitted on Twitter that he had been late to declare to the German Parliament's administration a total of 17,850 euros in additional income he had received the previous year as an advance payment for a book deal.
21.
In 2020 Karl Lauterbach was awarded with die Salomon Neumann medal by the German society for social medicine and prevention DGSMP.