Blatant verbal attacks on researchers who published their findings on Covid-19, ignorance of politicians, little support from universities and the scientific community: the balance sheet presented at a conference on the dialogue between (communication) science and society is alarming because the topic affects everyone and because trust in science and the media is a key to successful cooperation.
The pre-conference on the topic: “Public asia rcs data communication science in times of the Covid-19 crisis” took place as part of “DACH 21”, a three-country conference of communication science from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, which was held virtually in Zurich.
Politicians received harsh criticism, with a focus on Switzerland. "Official Switzerland did not take the problem seriously," said Matthias Egger, professor of epidemiology at the University of Bern and president of the Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation and first president of the Federal Council's Covid-19 task force. The Federal Council "never took the time to listen to the task force" and, in his opinion, was not interested in understanding the medical problem. He himself then resigned as task force president because he feared that the National Science Foundation could be damaged by this involvement.