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"Not clear at all" - Virologist Ciesek causes a sensation: Omicron isn't much more infectious than Delta?

2022-02-11T09:59:23.223Z


"Not clear at all" - Virologist Ciesek causes a sensation: Omicron isn't much more infectious than Delta? Created: 02/11/2022, 10:55 am By: Julia Schöneseiffen The virologist Ciesek criticizes the shortening of the recovered status and pleads for "individual medical" decisions. According to Ciesek, there is still no end in sight to the pandemic. Munich – When will Corona become endemic? This i


"Not clear at all" - Virologist Ciesek causes a sensation: Omicron isn't much more infectious than Delta?

Created: 02/11/2022, 10:55 am

By: Julia Schöneseiffen

The virologist Ciesek criticizes the shortening of the recovered status and pleads for "individual medical" decisions.

According to Ciesek, there is still no end in sight to the pandemic.

Munich – When will Corona become endemic?

This is a question that most people are likely to ask themselves after two years of the pandemic.

The Frankfurt virologist Sandra Ciesek predicts an end only "when everyone has had contact - either through vaccination or infection".

She is still critical of reducing the convalescent status from six to three months.

On Friday (January 28), the director of the Institute for Medical Virology at the Frankfurt University Hospital pleaded for the time of the booster to be decided “individually and medically” after recovery.

"I'm not really happy and satisfied with the regulations," said Ciesek.

Defining a uniform point in time for everyone is “very difficult”.

Virologist Sandra Ciesek is critical of the shortening of the recovered status: "Real dilemma"

It must be taken into account which virus variant you were infected with, how old you are and how long ago the vaccinations were.

"The regulation with the three months is very unfavorable for some patients," explains the virologist.

Young people who were vaccinated in the summer and became infected in the fall are now “in a real dilemma”.

They would now have to be boosted after three months, "but some have antibodies that go beyond our measurement window".

Here it makes sense to wait for the new vaccine adapted to Omikron.

It's different for 60-year-olds.

"This virus has surprised us again and again," said Ciesek in her balance sheet two years after the beginning of the pandemic.

Virologists had expected the virus to change, but not "that it would happen so quickly and that we would see so many variants".

The hope that the pandemic would come to an end with the vaccine "unfortunately didn't really come true".

Virologist Ciesek: Fourth vaccination at Omikron does not make sense for everyone

Vaccinations are still important to prevent serious illnesses.

The fact that Omikron is really so much more infectious than Delta is “not at all clear from a virological point of view,” said Ciesek.

The fact that more people are getting infected is more due to “the fact that the virus finds many more victims”: At Delta, the virus was “blocked” better by those who were vaccinated, those who were vaccinated and boosted were also infected with Omicron, which is why the virus can now do better again circulate.

Another reason is the shorter incubation period.

Ciesek does not believe that a fourth vaccination will soon be necessary for everyone.

For Omikron, that doesn't make "a big difference".

The antibodies rose less than after the second or third vaccination "and I also know some who got infected despite four vaccinations".

The virologist Sandra Ciesek doubts that a fourth vaccination will soon be necessary for everyone.

© Sebastian Gollnow / dpa

In the long term, however, more than three vaccinations are conceivable: "I do believe that some people will have to be vaccinated regularly." It is not yet possible to say when the virus will become endemic.

"It's important to understand that you only reach an endemic stage when everyone has had contact somehow - either through vaccination or infection and then the courses just become milder.

And we're not that far."

Omicron: chance of endemic?

The virologist Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit, on the other hand, believes.

"that we are in the final phase of the pandemic," as he explains to

t-online

.

He sees a possible end to the pandemic in the omicron variant.

The WHO has already predicted that around 60 percent of Europeans will become infected with the omicron variant.

Accordingly, the basic immunity in the population increases, according to the virologist.

"I believe and would wish for all of us that Omicron is our way out of the endemic."

(dpa/jsch)

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-02-11

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