The virologist Alexander Kekulé assumes that corona waves will follow every autumn/winter, but without the “national emergency”. Why he’s against relaxing now.
Munich – Should Germany already relax the corona measures – or wait and see? There is no consensus in politics. While Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) considers easing before Easter possible, Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder pushed ahead today. For the virologist Alexander Kekulé, decisive easing is currently too early. Although he is positive about the future, he also has words of warning.
His colleague, the virologist Klaus Stöhr, has not only dismantled compulsory vaccination in Germany with harsh words – Stöhr is also in favor of lifting certain rules.
Virologist Kekulé: omicron wave just before the peak – loosening too early
“According to my forecast, we will reach the maximum of this wave of infections in the next seven days. And it will then fall off relatively quickly,” said Alexander Kekulé in an interview n-tv. But he warns: “Then you have to decide at which point you actually relax. It certainly wouldn’t make sense to ease while there’s still upside, that would lengthen the wave.”
With the abatement of the omicron wave, Kekulé expects that the “pandemic as a national emergency” will then be over. But it is also clear to him: “In autumn, probably every autumn, we will have new corona waves with new variants. But that will no longer be the case, so we have to have a kind of state of emergency in the country. ”It is currently difficult to predict whether the new state will start at Easter.
Omicron vaccine: how can vaccinations continue?
If new corona waves build up every autumn – how can the booster vaccinations continue? Will there always be adapted vaccines that certain population groups need? “Unfortunately, one has to say that the Omikron vaccine comes too late. It is that we urgently needed a vaccine adapted to Delta. That was a variant* that really claimed a lot of lives,” says Kekulé.
Because Omicron as a variant looks immunologically different from previous answers, the diseases were not that severe, says Kekulé. “But that is also a disadvantage, because a vaccination against omicron or an infection with omicron does not protect so well against new variants, which may then look very different.”
One has to wait and see with statements regarding further vaccinations: “In August or so we will see relatively well what to expect in autumn. And then you would actually have to have a special variant of the vaccine adapted to it in order to protect us from the new variants in autumn,” says Kekulé. (kat) *Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
#Kekulé #Omicron #wave #nearing #peak