Many Germans are longing for the end of the corona pandemic.
Virologist Christian Drosten is skeptical.
And sees a country much further in terms of development.
Berlin - The corona virus continues to preoccupy the world.
After all, corona vaccinations have been providing light at the end of the tunnel for a few months.
A high vaccination rate could lead to some countries getting out of the corona pandemic into the state of endemic.
If a disease reaches the endemic phase, it is part of everyday life, so to speak.
The corona disease would then be a recurring clinical picture, comparable to the flu.
Both the frequency of illnesses and the number of new cases are at a constant level in an endemic.
On the other hand, there will be considerable fluctuations in these factors during the pandemic.
Corona: Drosten expects an early endemic phase in Great Britain, "rather not" in Germany
Virologist Christian Drosten believes that several countries can come to the endemic corona status before the coming winter.
“Great Britain is one of them,” said the head of virology at the Berlin Charité at the
time
.
For the Federal Republic, however, Drosten did not have a good prognosis: "Germany is not the case today."
The reason is the stagnating course of the German corona vaccination campaign.
On Wednesday morning (September 15), Health Minister Jens Spahn will announce the current status on Twitter as usual.
"In Germany, 62.4 percent (51.9 million) have full vaccination protection, 66.7 percent (55.5 million) have been vaccinated at least once," wrote the CDU politician.
And added: “It is currently particularly easy to get vaccinated.
There are low-threshold offers all over the country. "
But apparently too few German citizens make use of these.
The release of the corona vaccines for 12 to 17 year olds only brought about a brief boom in demand.
In the meantime, that has also died down.
A similarly low willingness to vaccinate has been found in most of the other age groups in Germany for some time.
Corona: According to Drosten, "post-infection" is a basic requirement for the transition to endemic disease
The situation is better in Great Britain.
There (as of September 13) the vaccination rate is higher (64.7 percent completely, 71 percent vaccinated at least once).
In addition, more than seven million corona cases have already been registered in Great Britain and over four million in Germany.
The immunity gap results from the vaccination quota and the infections, explained Drosten. In Germany this is currently too big, so the status of endemic in winter cannot yet be achieved. In order to get there, a so-called "post-infection" must first be carried out. This means infection with the coronavirus after a complete vaccination. In Great Britain, Drosten believes this will be possible in the coming winter.
So there may still be a troubled winter time ahead of Germany. But the virus expert still gives hope. "I assume that Sars-CoV-2 will behave like the other endemic corona viruses in the long term," said Drosten. “Just like all other scientists,” he could not say this with absolute certainty. But the previous variants of the corona viruses have become increasingly weaker. Ultimately, these would have mainly caused mild colds, according to the virologist. He is therefore in good spirits that this development will also take place at Sars-Cov-2.
(kh)
