Dhe head of the World Health Organization (WHO) sees a chance of an end to the corona pandemic. Vaccination efforts should not slow down now, said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in Geneva on Wednesday. The number of reported deaths in the past week has been the lowest since March 2020.
“We have never been in a better position to end the pandemic,” Tedros said. “We’re not there yet, but the end is in sight. A marathon runner doesn’t stop when the finish line is in sight. She runs with even more determination, with all the energy she has left. We have to do that too,” he said. Otherwise there is a risk of new virus variants, more deaths and greater uncertainties.
The WHO is urging all countries to continue testing and, most importantly, vaccinating. The elderly and health workers in particular should be 100 percent vaccinated. Overall, every country should aim to have 70 percent of its population vaccinated.
German experts give different forecasts
Virologist Christian Drosten expects a “strong wave of incidence” of corona infections “before December”, the bioinformatician Lars Kaderali, on the other hand, expects a not too violent increase. Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) assumes a “moderate” autumn wave.
Drosten, Director of Virology at Berlin’s Charité University Hospital, said that new virus variants are still causing many new cases of illness. Even in the case of mild illnesses, this will probably lead to significant absences from work. “Infected people may not go to the hospital, but very many are sick for a week. If there are too many at once, it becomes a problem,” said Drosten.
On the other hand, the Greifswald bioinformatician Kaderali, who is a member of the Federal Government’s Corona Expert Council, believes that many people have been immunized through contact with the virus in recent months. The number of infections had fallen without any special measures being taken. “That just means the virus really got through,” he told the German Press Agency. Because of the broader immunity in addition to vaccinations, Kaderali expects, in his own words, that the winter wave will not be too severe – as long as no completely new variant appears.
However, Drosten pointed out that the protection against further transmission in the case of an infection with omicron does not last long. “An infected person whose last infection was more than three months ago carries just as much virus in their throat and can therefore probably infect as many others as someone who has never been infected.” This also applies to vaccinated people.
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