Drosten's statement causes a stir: virologist wants to infect himself with corona

Virologist Christian Drosten causes a stir with a statement in the new Corona NDR podcast "Coronavirus Update".

It is a natural infection after vaccination protection.

Berlin - A coronavirus infection can take very different courses.

Some people show no symptoms, while others are in intensive care units, have to be ventilated and often fight in vain for their lives.

A vaccination against corona can prevent severe disease and death, but not 100 percent protect against infection.

An increasing vaccination rate combined with natural infections helps protect the entire population.

In the meantime, vaccination in Germany is proceeding at a snail's pace.

The highly contagious Delta variant has emerged and the fourth corona wave began before autumn and winter.

Covid-19: will the coronavirus ever go away again?

The corona virus remains, Corona researchers agree in principle.

WHO officials have described the virus as epidemic.

This means that, like influenza viruses, it circulates in the population and causes seasonal outbreaks.

So we have to live with the virus, but there is vaccination protection.

Virologist Christian Drosten from the Berlin Charité has been classifying the situation in Germany in the NDR podcast "Coronavirus Update" since the beginning of the corona pandemic, providing information on the status of research.

Drosten then speaks in detail about booster vaccinations and also the term herd immunity, which in his opinion some people have understood as "sterile elimination".

That was never the goal, said the virologist.

The aim was to slow down the possible speed at which the virus could spread.

A threshold would be reached with the vaccines, so that the virus can spread insidiously in the population and most, by far, almost every infected person does not really mind.

Drosten had assumed that this would have been possible at the end of August if the vaccination rate was over 80 percent.

"I really thought we would come out of the summer break with a high vaccination rate and then celebrate in a few podcast episodes how well we did all of this in Germany," said virologist Christian Drosten on Friday (3rd Friday).

He warns of autumn and winter.

Especially since the vaccination protection in the general population gets a bit worse over time.

Is there long protection against the coronavirus?

Booster vaccinations are part of the solution, but they could not be the goal for all time, explains the top virologist. This epidemic situation must be viewed as a cold situation. The majority of infection biologists and medical professionals would also see it that way at the moment. This means that “our immune update”, ie the “booster immunization”, can be resilient through repeated contact with the virus.

"My goal as a Virologist Drosten, as I would like to become immune now, is: I want to have immunity and, saddling up on it, I definitely want to have my first general infection and the second and third at some point," explains Drosten. He had come to terms with that for a long time. Infection immunity is more robust in the long run. However, the virologist has to admit, "I would like to have been vaccinated a third time". But his third dose of vaccine is going to Africa first.