What is currently happening is exactly what experts have been predicting for weeks: the incidences are rising rapidly.
In an interview, the Munich-based infectious agent Dr.
Christoph Spinner, how the situation should be classified.
Munich - Dr.
Christoph Spinner is an infectiologist and pandemic officer at the University Hospital on the right of the Isar in Munich.
In the interview, he comments on the renewed increase in the number of infections in the corona pandemic and the consequences for the clinics.
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The look at the number of hospitalizations: The infectiologist Dr.
Christoph Spinner classifies the corona situation.
© Astrid Schmidhuber
Dr.
Weirdo, the incidences are rising again significantly.
Do we need to worry?
Spinner:
An increase in the incidence of new infections was to be expected in the winter months and is therefore not a cause for concern on its own.
In order to avert avoidable severe Covid-19 courses, the most important thing now is a high vaccination rate.
What incidences can we expect in winter?
Spinner: In
my opinion, that is difficult to predict, especially since it depends on many factors.
This includes, for example, the vaccination rate, but also people's behavior.
In particular, compliance with the AHA rules should be mentioned here.
As a doctor, I have been paying much more attention to the number of hospitalizations, i.e. the number of hospital admissions, for a few months now.
But here, too, we will certainly see a further increase.
Do the numbers have an impact on the intensive care units or is there a decreasing relationship between occupancy and incidence?
Spinner:
Incidence and hospital admissions are no longer linked as strongly as in the first waves, but of course there is still a connection here: A higher incidence means more infections and thus the statistical probability of severe courses increases - especially among those who have not been vaccinated.
Is the situation still different from a year ago?
Spinner:
Since people with a high risk of a severe course of Covid-19 - especially the elderly and chronically ill - had the opportunity to have a vaccination, many hospital and intensive care admissions are avoided.
In the clinics we currently see mostly unvaccinated or vaccinated people whose immune system responded poorly to the vaccination due to a severe immune deficiency, for example.
There are more vaccine breakthroughs.
Julian Nagelsmann from FC Bayern just got it.
Spinner:
First of all, it is important to differentiate between a vaccination breakthrough and a lack of response of the immune system to the vaccination.
A vaccination breakthrough means that an infection has occurred despite the vaccination and subsequently successfully built up immunity.
Failure to respond to vaccination means that, despite vaccination, little or no immunity has been built up.
This can be the case, for example, with chronically ill people who suffer from cancer such as leukemia or who have to undergo dialysis.
Would a booster vaccination now make sense for everyone or is the vaccination protection still sufficient for healthy people?
Spinner:
All Covid-19 vaccinations provide effective protection against severe courses - that's what counts.
Unfortunately, there are currently no good laboratory chemical measurements that can be used to reliably determine whether there is still sufficient immunity.
In addition, vaccination protection does not decrease at the same rate for everyone.
In people under 60 to 70 years of age who have a healthy immune system, sufficient vaccination protection can still be assumed.
Therefore, currently only people over 70 with immunodeficiency diseases and / or chronic illnesses as well as employees in the health care system should be boosted, i.e. receive a booster vaccination.
With the latter, the main aim is to further reduce the risk of transmission to patients.
Interview: Wolfgang Hauskrecht
List of rubric lists: © Astrid Schmidhuber