Germany’s public health agency said that lockdowns can cause more harm than good in documents released after a long legal battle.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) raised concerns in December 2020 that shutting down society could lead to increased child mortality, citing examples in Africa.

The institute also disagreed with making FFP2 masks mandatory because of a lack of evidence, the minutes revealed.

The RKI handed over the documents last week after losing a two-year court case to an obscure media outlet called Multipolar.

The minutes are taken from daily meetings of the agency’s “crisis unit” between February 2020 and April 2021.

However, roughly a third of the total documentation has been redacted, leading to concerns that the health agency is still trying to hide some of its confidential deliberations.

Politicians have urged the RKI to uncensor the entirety of its findings.

“Everything should be put on the table,” Armin Laschet, a centre-Right lawmaker, told broadcaster ZDF.

“We can now see how differentiated discussions at the RKI were at the time and how little of this diversity ended up in concrete policy,” said Mr Laschet, who was the Christian Democrats’ unsuccessful chancellor candidate at the last election.