Despite criticism of his work as Federal Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach continues to warn of corona infections and their consequences. This time the SPD politician refers to a study on Long-Covid.
Munich/Berlin – Karl Lauterbach (SPD) recently came under criticism. “It’s entirely possible that we could get a highly contagious omicron variant as deadly as Delta. That would be an absolute killer variant,” said the Federal Minister of Health with a view to the corona pandemic picture on sunday.
Karl Lauterbach: Criticized for the alleged “killer variant” of the corona virus
A “killer variant” of the corona virus? Some colleagues disagreed with his choice of words after Germany had just recovered collectively from what felt like the umpteenth wave of the pandemic. Hendrik Streeck, Director of the Institute for Virology and HIV Research at the Medical Faculty of the University of Bonn, explained loudly German Press Agency (dpa): “You cannot predict the development of variants. Therefore, rather than warning of scenarios such as ‘killer variants’, it would be important to prepare for autumn and winter.”
The term is “unscientific” and leads to nothing but uncertainty in the population, said Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit in an interview with the picture. “According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the occurrence of a ‘killer variant’ in autumn is a very unlikely scenario,” said the virologist and university lecturer from the University of Hamburg. Lauterbach, however, does not let up with his warnings. He now referred to a study from Great Britain on Long-Covid on Twitter, which was published in the specialist magazine The Lancet Respiratory Medicine has been published.
Karl Lauterbach: Federal Minister of Health refers to study on Long-Covid
He shared a tweet about the study by Prof. Dr. Christian Karagiannidis, President of the German Society for Internal Intensive Care Medicine and Emergency Medicine. “In the study, approximately 75% were unhealthy one year after discharge after being hospitalized for COVID-19. The long-term effects of COVID will cost our healthcare system a lot of money for a long time to come. Research for Long COVID urgently needs to be expanded,” Lauterbach wrote.
Karagiannidis had commented: “One of the most important works on Long-Covid: Significant reduction in quality of life even after one year. Physically and mentally. CRP and IL-6 (inflammatory markers) still increased after a long time as an indication of possible therapeutic approaches?” In the study, that Biomedical Research Centre from the University of Leicester analyzed data from 2,320 adult patients in a Covid-19 study from 39 different British clinics.
They were asked about their state of health first five months and then again twelve months after their hospital stay because of corona disease. At the same time, her blood was examined for inflammatory proteins.
In the video: criticism of Lauterbach – is there really a corona “killer variant”?
Only 26 percent of patients reported a full recovery. On the other hand, 29 percent reported that they had had the same symptoms for a year, such as fatigue, i.e. recurring severe tiredness. In a conclusion to the study, research leader Christopher Brightling called for effective treatments against long-Covid. Because this could otherwise develop into a widespread new long-term disease. Federal Health Minister Lauterbach apparently shares this assessment. (pm) *Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA
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