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Biontech vaccine: the upcoming winter will be a "social and medical challenge"
Photo: Dinendra Haria / SOPA Images / LightRocket / Getty Images
The scholars of the Leopoldina originally intended to issue a scientific statement on the future development of antiviral drugs against corona. However, the researchers estimate the current infection situation to be so dramatic that they have put a preface with a hard list of demands. It says what, in their opinion, needs to happen now. It was written by Gerald Haug, the president of the academy and advisor to the federal government.
The virus pandemic "gained strong momentum again with the fourth wave," writes the Max Planck researcher in the statement made available to SPIEGEL.
Haug is particularly concerned about the slow progress of the vaccination compared to other EU countries such as Portugal.
He writes: "The vaccination rate that is too low - around 16 million adults are currently not vaccinated - is a major factor in the increasing number of serious illnesses, sometimes with long hospital stays."
Lack of prevention, clear rules and stringency
In some points the company is better positioned than in the first year of the pandemic, says Haug, who is in constant contact with Leopoldina members such as Charité boss Heyo Kroemer and RKI President Lothar Wieler. But he is particularly concerned about the significantly reduced workforce in intensive care units. The politicians in Berlin and in the federal states criticize the experts for “a lack of prevention, clear rules and stringency”.
The Leopoldina recommendations on how to deal with this fourth wave are correspondingly drastic. In addition to generally accepted demands, such as the wearing of masks indoors and an intensified vaccination campaign, including booster vaccinations, Haug and his colleagues also speak out in favor of a number of measures that are highly controversial.
In the occupational health and safety ordinance, "an appropriate regulation for disclosing the vaccination status" is needed, according to the statement. So far, for reasons of data protection law, employers have not been allowed to ask employees whether they have been vaccinated. According to Leopoldina, this should change so that companies can better plan the deployment of their people, for example on the assembly line or in open-plan offices, to protect against corona infections.
The 2G rule, according to which only vaccinated or convalescent people are allowed access to events, should be given "a greater scope of validity", write Haug and the Leopoldina researchers. In doing so, they support a corresponding regulation as it applies in the state of Saxony or as it is also planning the state of Berlin. In doing so, you contradict in particular the FDP and also parts of the Greens who have spoken out against an expansion of the 2G rules.
The same applies to the third point, "Vaccination requirements for multipliers", as stated in the position paper.
This is not just about nurses, whose lack of vaccination status has been hotly debated in recent weeks.
According to Leopoldina, teaching staff or other professional groups with a lot of contact with other people should also be vaccinated.
Those responsible at the National Academy are aware that they are making far-reaching demands on politics.
But they justify this with the fact that the "upcoming winter will be a social and medical challenge".
Drug research is to be strengthened
The Leopoldina gives little hope that Corona will simply disappear again as the disease came. On the contrary: the virus will "establish itself as an endemic virus in the long term, that is, it will circulate permanently in parts of the population," expect the Leopoldina experts. Even after the pandemic subsided, people would become infected, which could lead to severe courses and deaths.
That is why it is important to "intensify research into antiviral drugs."
This is a lesson from the past two years.
It showed that in addition to vaccination and protection against transmissions, there were »gaps« that need to be closed.
Antiviral drugs could protect those who are not vaccinated or not sufficiently vaccinated, or for whom the vaccination did not provide adequate immune protection, from a severe course of the disease.
The Leopoldina also sees the state and politics in demand as supporters.
Basic and clinical research must join forces with biotech and pharmaceutical companies to form a network in which supervisory authorities and, in the event of a crisis, politicians are members.
