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Ambulance transport of a corona patient (archive image)
Photo: imageBROKER / Oskar Eyb / imago images / imagebroker
In the UK, the Delta variant has already messed up the schedule for downgrading the corona measures.
And the mutant is also appearing more and more in Germany.
The chairman of the World Medical Association, Frank Ulrich Montgomery, fears a rapid spread of variant B.1.617.2, which is considered particularly infectious, and sees a need for action in politics.
It is to be expected that the Delta variant in Germany will expand even faster than the previous variants, said Montgomery to the newspapers of the Funke media group.
"The tricky thing about this variant is that infected people very quickly have a very high viral load in their throat and can thus infect others before they even realize they are infected," said Montgomery.
As long as not enough people have been vaccinated, the risk of infection in everyday life must be reduced, warned the medical representative.
"For this reason, FFP2 masks should definitely continue to be worn in public transport, in shops and other indoor areas."
Countries should check whether the announced easing did not go too far.
“They should also have the political stature to reverse the easing that has been announced if the number of infections caused by the delta variant should rise again.
Just like the British government has done now, ”the doctor emphasized.
The SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach assumes that the Delta variant will play the dominant role in Germany in autumn because it is so much more contagious.
He hoped that this would not become a big problem, of all things, for the children who were not vaccinated, Lauterbach said in the ARD “Tagesthemen”.
"The vaccinated will have no problems with the Delta variant," said the SPD politician.
This virus variant does not compete with the vaccines used.
The proportion of the Delta variant discovered in India has recently increased significantly in Germany, albeit at a low level.
According to the report by the Robert Koch Institute, their share of new Sars-CoV-2 infections was 6.2 percent in calendar week 22 (May 31 to June 6).
In the previous week it was 3.7 percent.
Due to the spread of the Delta variant in Great Britain, the government there postponed the lifting of all corona measures, which was actually planned for June 21, until July 19.
Numbers are increasing in the UK
A study from Scotland published on Monday in the medical journal »Lancet« estimates the risk of getting to hospital with a severe corona course about twice as high for the Delta variant as for the original wild type. The transmission capacity of the delta variant is therefore higher than that of the alpha variant, which is already considered very contagious.
Although the British vaccination campaign is well advanced and almost 45 percent of adults are already fully vaccinated (for comparison: in Germany it is only around 27 percent), variant B.1.617.2 has caused the number of infections in the country to skyrocket again.
After only very few new infections were counted for weeks and the seven-day incidence was around 20, similar to that in Germany, it is now almost 68 again. The delta variant now accounts for more than 90 percent of new infections.
Head of the Chancellery warns against traveling to the EM
Because of the virus situation in Great Britain, Chancellery Minister Helge Braun advised German football fans against traveling to London for the semi-finals and the final of the European Championship.
The spread of the Delta variant in Great Britain was his "great concern," said the CDU politician to the editorial network in Germany.
Braun pointed out that the federal government had classified the UK as a virus variant area in May.
Football fans would therefore have to go into quarantine for two weeks after a trip to the European Championship games in London in Germany.
The Chancellery Minister also criticized Hungary for its European Championship kick-off in Budapest with a full stadium: "I'll find a full stadium next to it." In contrast, the match between Germany and France in Munich showed "that distance rules can be adhered to".
jok / dpa
