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virologist Christian Drosten
Photo: Christoph Hardt / Future Image / IMAGO
Experts have warned against a one-sided focus on the so-called 2G and 3G rules in the fight against the spreading corona pandemic.
The 3G rule allows people who have been vaccinated and recovered as well as those who have been tested to have access to indoor events, for example.
However, people who have been vaccinated could also be unknowingly infected and transmit the virus.
In stable social groups, for example in the workplace, the 3G rule could do something, for example with tests every two days, said virologist Christian Drosten from the Berlin Charité on Monday in an expert hearing in the Bundestag on the corona plans of the future traffic light coalition.
However, this would conflict with logistical requirements.
However, Drosten dampened expectations of a 3G rule in local public transport.
The virologist described that there is "acute pressure on basic medical care".
In principle, the primarily unvaccinated Covid-19 sufferers competed with the entire population for medical care.
Accordingly, one must now first and foremost protect the unvaccinated against infection, because the basic need of the population for health care is constant.
However, Drosten does not see 3G as a helpful measure at this point: The tests did not prevent infections, they even have the effect that unvaccinated people find themselves in situations in which they could become infected.
"We are now in a high-incidence situation, so we have to reckon with the fact that the vaccinated people present each have a substantial risk of being infected undetected."
"Additional protective layer"
Many unvaccinated groups are also difficult to reach through 3G because, for example, they have no formal work or are retired, do not travel much and hardly attend events and "actually move about in their private life," said Drosten.
According to Drosten, these people are hardly protected by 2G - that is, access only for those who have been vaccinated or recovered - because they are "carried home" with the virus in their private lives, including by children from school.
And the school should and must run.
"With this impression, I think, one has to think about how to introduce an additional protective layer here for those who are not vaccinated and can be infected in private." That depends on the group size and the freedom to meet.
Max Planck researcher Viola Priesemann does not see the 2G and 3G regulations as a panacea either.
Establishing only 2G and 3G in the public sector will "not be enough to bring the number of cases down".
After all, most of the contacts are in the private sphere.
Priesemann again strongly advocated a faster pace of basic vaccinations and booster vaccinations.
If the level of vaccinations reached in summer again, "then we would see the first effects in a month," said Priesemann at the hearing with a view to the number of new infections.
wbr / dpa / AFP