The Corona year 2022: Experts make forecasts until autumn - not everyone agrees
Created: 01/20/2022, 12:51 p.m
Christian Drosten (lr), Director of the Institute for Virology at the Charité Berlin, and Karl Lauterbach (SPD), Federal Minister of Health.
© Kay Nietfeld/dpa
2022 is already the third year of the corona pandemic.
Experts have already given their forecasts of how the situation will develop this year.
Munich - Today Omikron still dominates the country.
The Robert Koch Institute gave the number of new infections on Wednesday as 112,323.
This is the first time since the pandemic began that the value has exceeded the 100,000 mark.
"I believe that we will reach the peak of the wave in mid-February," said Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD).
Only then, in his opinion, could the number of cases fall again in this country.
But what comes after that?
It is true that nobody can reliably predict what the future will bring - not even with a view to the pandemic.
But there are forecasts.
Corona: Virologist Stöhr optimistic for 2022 - Drosten also gives hope
Virologist Klaus Stöhr assumes that the pandemic situation will ease significantly in spring. "We will then have the need for measures and large-scale tests behind us." By the summer, the incidence of infection will even decrease dramatically. The virus will continue to circulate at a low level, says Stöhr of the
tz
. In autumn, the season of respiratory diseases begins again. Whether further vaccinations will then be necessary will depend on the natural immunity in the population that has been achieved by infections by then. However, Stöhr believes that the over 60s at most need another booster. "In the following year, almost 100% immunization will be achieved in adults."
Virologist Christian Drosten also gives hope: “Will we ever live like before the pandemic again?
Yes absolutely.
I'm completely sure of that," he recently told the
Tagesspiegel
.
Although he expects an increase in the incidence and the obligation to wear masks indoors in the coming winter, “really significant restrictions” will probably not be necessary.
Corona 2022: Lauterbach worried about autumn - new mutations are imminent
Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, on the other hand, is more concerned about the end of the year.
It is quite possible “that we will be dealing with a mutated Delta type in the fall.
The Delta variant is changing," he said of the
picture
.
People who are not vaccinated are at high risk.
What is pretty clear is that an already smoldering explosive debate is poised to reach its climax in the coming months.
While Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) initially assumed that the decision to introduce compulsory corona vaccination could be made in February, it now looks as if the Bundestag will only vote on this question in March.
If the MPs vote for it, Lauterbach assumes that compulsory vaccination could be introduced in April or May.
(hey)
