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Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD)
Photo: Kay Nietfeld / dpa
The RKI is currently reporting a slow increase in new infections, but the experts largely agree that the infection rate can change dramatically if the more contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus prevails.
The number of infections with the mutant is currently doubling every four days.
There is an effective antidote for Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD): He sees a great protective effect against Omikron even with corona first vaccinations.
"The first vaccination drastically lowers the risk of death after just 14 days," he told the "Bild am Sonntag".
With an increase in the first vaccinations, the number of corona deaths could also be effectively reduced in the »Omikron wave«.
The feeling of many unvaccinated people that the train has left for them anyway is not true: "Get vaccinated," is his appeal.
Studies have shown that the Omicron variant spreads much faster than the Delta variant, but also causes slightly less severe cases.
"But that is not the all-clear for older people who have not been vaccinated," emphasized Lauterbach.
He is waiting for further scientific studies.
In Denmark and Great Britain, where scientists reported milder disease courses with an Omicron infection, the vaccination rate for older people is significantly higher than in Germany.
Lauterbach wrote on Twitter that Omikron resulted in "very many" hospital admissions in Great Britain.
Intensive care admissions, however, rose more slowly.
Britain had last reported 189,000 new infections a day.
A "tragedy" has so far not occurred there because the elderly have a "high" vaccination rate and 75 percent have been boosted.
In the "BamS", Lauterbach was "very, very concerned about the unvaccinated" in Germany.
Lauterbach also reiterated the benefits of masks - the new variant has even increased this: "The viral load of infected people is lower with Omikron, so masks work better." Especially in school, wearing the masks is "an absolute must for everyone Classes, ”he told the newspaper.
According to the BamS, the statistician Christian Hesse from the University of Stuttgart predicted that the Omikron mutant would prevail within a few days: “The Omikron variant is already dominant in some federal states such as Lower Saxony. In a week it will be in all of Germany. "
Some doctors and researchers also see an opportunity in the spread of the mutant, which causes milder symptoms. The President of the Association of Leading Hospital Doctors in Germany (VLK), Michael Weber, hopes the Omikron variant of the coronavirus will significantly reduce the burden on the health system. "If the Omikron variant is as prevalent in our country as in South Africa, Great Britain or Denmark and the infections are as predominantly mild as there, there is a realistic probability that the pandemic will also become endemic in this country," Weber said of " World on Sunday «.
The strongly mutated omicron variant was detected for the first time in South Africa a good month ago.
Since then, it has spread to about a hundred countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
In several European countries, including France and Portugal, Omikron has already developed into the predominant Corona variant.
oka / AFP
