Ex-French health minister charged over COVID handling

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Buzyn has been charged with “endangering the lives of others”, the prosecutor of the Republic’s Court of Justice said on Friday, but not for a second possible offence of “failure to stop a disaster”. Ex-French health minister charged over COVID handling (AlJazeera, Sep 10, 2021)

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Prosecutors looking into government failings are investigating Agnès Buzyn for "endangering the lives of others". Ms Buzyn left the post in February 2020 to run for Paris mayor, saying Covid was low risk. But she later spoke of knowing a "tsunami" was approaching. It is one of the world's first cases of a minister facing legal accountability for their pandemic response. A special court set up in France in 1993 to investigate government ministers accused of misconduct will decide whether to prosecute her. The wording of one of the charges being investigated is "failing to fight a disaster", according to Le Monde newspaper. (...) Le Monde said Ms Buzyn had spoken before leaving her post of "very low risks" of a major Covid outbreak. (...) The court is looking into accusations of negligence in the provision of protective clothing to health staff, and confusion in the issuing of advice over masks. Agnès Buzyn: France ex-health minister under investigation (BBC, Sep 11, 2021)

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She said initially in January 2020 that there was "practically no risk" of importing Covid-19 from the Chinese city at the origin of the outbreak, Wuhan, and then said the "risk of a spread of the coronavirus among the population is very small". A month later, as she left the ministry to launch a failed bid to become Paris mayor, she claimed that "the tsunami has yet to come", in an apparent contradiction of her earlier statements. French ex-health minister Buzyn under formal investigation over handling of pandemic (France24, Sep 10, 2021)

Considering what politicians and alleged epidemiologists seem to have got away with scot-free in other countries, I am surprised to see one of them actually being held responsible for something.

via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/3kIfol3