The EU Commission is presenting an ambitious plan to win the fight against the corona pandemic.
The means to an end?
A comprehensive herd immunity.
On Thursday (January 21) the
EU Commission
will meet for a virtual video summit.
The nationwide corona vaccination has so far caused problems.
The goal: quasi
herd immunity
.
In addition, a
new strategy
to combat the
mutations
of Sars-CoV-2 is to be developed.
Brussels - Stuttering vaccination start, problems with vaccine production and increasing tiredness among many citizens in a
lockdown state of emergency
: the
EU Commission
now wants to shine a light at the end of the tunnel
.
By the summer, more precisely at the end of August, she announced on Tuesday in Brussels, 70 percent of adults in the EU should be
vaccinated
against the
coronavirus
.
Quasi herd immunity should be achieved as a prerequisite for a return to normality in Europe.
From Brussels' point of view, there is an intermediate goal by March: 80 percent of
people over 80 years of age
and of
those working
in the
health care system
should be immunized with the vaccine by then.
The EU summit on Thursday should approve the plan.
Corona: privileges for vaccinated people?
EU Commission discusses the introduction of vaccination records
At the
video summit
, Chancellor Angela Merkel and the other heads of state and government, according to Council Chairman Charles Michel, will also discuss the question of whether there should be an
EU vaccination certificate
and associated privileges.
There are heated discussions about this in Germany.
The
EU Commission
wants to
plead
for a
vaccination document that is
as precise as possible and recognized in all EU countries
.
This should make it clear who received which vaccine and when in which EU country.
This should also help to
trace
any
side effects
.
Whether vaccinated people enjoy advantages - for example access to restaurants and cinemas or easier vacation travel - should be left to the individual EU countries.
Corona mutations cause concern for the EU Commission - appeal for 400,000 deaths
Another
important point
: In view of the particularly contagious
mutations of the coronavirus
, the EU Commission wants to urge the member states to do more to detect the new virus forms.
This requires the so-called sequencing of the virus samples taken during tests.
Most EU countries are far from the desirable numbers for
sequencing
, it said in Brussels.
Virus variants would thus be discovered more by chance - unlike in Great Britain, where searches were carried out more systematically.
In connection with the
corona pandemic
, more than 400,000 people have now died in the European Union.
The number was named by EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides in the European Parliament.
“I hope that further approved vaccines will come in the next few weeks.” She referred to the application by the British-Swedish manufacturer Astrazeneca, which the EU drug agency EMA could decide on at the end of January.
+
Vaccinate against Corona as much and as quickly as possible: the EU is aiming for herd immunity by summer.
© Rolf Vennenbernd / dpa
Corona study by researchers gives hope for recovery
Meanwhile,
according to a study
,
corona sufferers
can
hope for
continued
protection from Covid-19
after recovery
.
The reason for this are so-called memory
cells, which are able to produce the antibodies necessary to fight the infection
even more than six months after surviving
corona disease
, according to a current article by Swiss and US researchers in the journal
Nature
.
The memory cells are "essential" for the
effectiveness of the corona vaccinations
.
Investigations of 87 confirmed corona patients have shown that the antibodies disappear again after recovery.
But the reaction of the so-called B memory cells is still available a good six months later.
This suggests that the bodies of infected people could react “quickly and efficiently” to further infections.
List of rubric lists: © Rolf Vennenbernd / dpa