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Christian Drosten (archive photo): "The virus has not become absolutely harmless"
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Michael Sohn/AP
Despite the easing that has been initiated, the virologist Christian Drosten is still urging careful action in the corona pandemic.
It is very important that the easing is not understood as an unthinking opening, said Drosten on Friday evening in the ARD "Tagesthemen".
»You have to watch this happening closely, the virus has not become absolutely harmless.
You just have to moderate the situation and not just let it take its course.«
Drosten went on to say: “Now for the very near future it is certainly the case that we will keep these high numbers in Germany for the time being.” It is also problematic that many older people are now becoming increasingly infected.
The highest incidences are also in school age.
'That means it's coming from the schools at the moment.
But if it's the holidays now, then that will be stopped." After Easter, when it's warm, the infection process will be mitigated.
“But it won’t stop completely like last year either,” is Drosten’s prediction.
»Well, I would guess: That will swing up again in the summer.
We don't have an infection-free summer.« But it's a summer.
“If we wear a mask indoors, for example, then you can moderate what is happening in such a way that it doesn’t get out of control.” Drosten went on to say that in winter “you have to take tougher action again, I would expect now”.
Is there an Omikron successor or another variant?
Drosten also said that the further course of the pandemic cannot be predicted.
The corona virus will continue to change.
"At the moment we don't know exactly whether it will be an omicron successor or whether it will then be another virus that comes from an older, original diversity." One has to make the vaccination process dependent on this.
"There are adapted omicron-specific vaccines, but at the moment we don't know exactly whether an omicron-like virus will circulate at all next winter or another." One cannot predict how the virus will change.
sol/dpa
