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In mid-January, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) shortened the period in which someone is officially considered recovered after being infected with the corona virus to 90 days.
The institute justified the shortening with the fact that "after an infection they have undergone a reduced and temporally even more limited protection against renewed infection with the omicron variant compared to the delta variant".
Those who have been vaccinated are now considered immune for longer than people who have survived a corona infection.
The immunologist Carsten Watzl finds this regulation »incomprehensible«.
He advocates treating the recovered and the vaccinated on an equal footing.
"If you've gone through an infection, you're immune," says Watzl, who is Secretary General of the German Society for Immunology.
“But the immunity is very variable.” In one case it is very strong, in another it is rather weak.
"On average, you are a little less protected than with two doses of Biontech." But, he emphasizes, there are also advantages: "The antibody level in those who have recovered decreases somewhat more slowly than in those who have been vaccinated.
And the antibodies are broader.”
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Antibodies are also only part of the protection that the body develops.
T cells could possibly even be active for life.
According to an article in the specialist journal "The Lancet Infectious Diseases" from the end of November, people who had been infected with Sars-Cov-1 in 2002/03 still had T cells against this virus type 17 years later.
With regard to the current pandemic, the authors of the article refer to “numerous studies” that have found that people who have recovered from Covid-19 rarely become infected again in the months that follow.
According to a September study, infection with the delta type of virus reduced the risk of re-infection by more than 80 percent.
Another study showed that of more than 9,000 people previously infected, only 0.7 percent got infected again within a year.
However: The Omicron variant, which can increasingly infect people who have recovered who had previously contracted other variants, was not yet circulating at the time.
The immunologist Watzl does not believe that the situation for those who have recovered has changed significantly as a result of Omicron.
"Studies show that many antibodies from those who have recovered can no longer recognize the omicron variant so well and that these people have little protection against infection," says the immunologist.
“But this change applies to vaccinated ones as well.
If you shorten the recovered status, you actually have to do the same for the vaccination certificates.« The shortening to three months is a »political decision that is not comprehensible on the basis of the data«.
Vaccination after infection is highly advisable
Critics say: The decision was primarily about getting more people to vaccinate, not about a scientifically sensible solution.
The federal government relies on the determination of the RKI.
Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said on Wednesday: "That was not a political decision, but it is the scientific status that the RKI, which is responsible for it, communicated and implemented."
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Watzl explicitly does not want his statements to be understood as a plea against vaccination: After an infection, it is very advisable to be vaccinated anyway.
Such a "hybrid immunity" is "the best protection that science currently knows".
The RKI currently estimates the number of people who have recovered to be around 7.5 million (as of Thursday), but assumes that it is “underreported”.
Watzl estimates that it could well be up to 20 million.
"We don't know who has recovered in Germany, we don't know who just recovered and who later got vaccinated," he says.
But that is important in order to realistically assess the size of the much-lamented vaccination gap.
Watzl prefers to speak of an "immunity gap" anyway.
It could well be smaller than assumed, he estimates, because those who have recovered should be added to the number of those vaccinated.
mar/dpa
