1 year Corona and us: What we know about the virus | NDR.de - news

Status: 02/28/2021 3:30 p.m.

In the corona pandemic, the relationship to science is being re-measured. Virologists are more popular than ever. This is also because we knew little about the virus. Scientists in MV have also learned a lot over the past year.

by Sabine Frömel

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The Rostock tropical medicine specialist Prof. Emil Reisinger advised the state government on the pandemic.
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A virus has been shaping our entire lives for a year and with it words that have never been used or barely used to date such as incidences, quarantine, intensive care bed occupancy or AHA rules. At the end of December 2019, reports of a mysterious lung disease appeared sporadically in the central Chinese metropolis of Wuhan. The symptoms: mainly fever and breathing problems. It is still unclear whether the disease is transmitted from person to person and how contagious it is. At the beginning of January 2020, the reports about the illnesses pile up. In Wuhan, central China, 50 infected people are already being treated in the hospital. There are suspicions that the trigger is a novel coronavirus. The Huanan market in Wuhan quickly comes into focus. Wild animals are also sold here. It could be the origin of the disease.

Scientists initially feel largely in the dark

There are also initial suspected cases in South Korea and Singapore. In Germany, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) estimated the risk of becoming infected with the novel coronavirus as “very low” in mid-January. The head of tropical medicine and infectious diseases at the Rostock University Medical Center, Prof. Emil Reisinger, is also observing the developments with his colleagues. “We can currently watch the situation in Germany in a relaxed manner,” said Reisinger on February 21, 2020 in NDR Nordmagazin. The virus does not appear to be very pathogenic and deadly like the SARS virus or the MERS virus, and the processes described so far are easier. “If a health system can cope with such a situation, it will be the German health system,” says Reisinger. The virologist Christian Drosten assumes that virus mutations arise so that it is transmitted from person to person. “Sometimes it is the case that a virus like this tends to weaken in this process, but is nevertheless more easily transmitted,” explains Drosten at the end of January 2020.

Northern Italy is hit by a wave of infections

Just a few days later, on January 27, 2020, there was the first official Covid 19 case in the Federal Republic – a Webasto employee from the Bavarian district of Starnberg was infected. Three days later, the Italian authorities confirmed the first Corona case in Rome. From then on, Covid-19 rolled across northern Italy like a wave. The city of Bergamo is hit particularly hard. The images of military vehicles transporting coffins go around the world. With 3,400 people who died from or with Corona, the Italians have more deaths than the Chinese in mid-March. The country will have one of the worst pandemic courses in Europe. On March 8, the first German dies of the consequences of Covid-19. Only a few days later the first test centers open in Greifswald, Schwerin and Rostock.

The first and second waves

The RKI describes the period from January to mid-June 2020 as the “first wave” with more than 190,000 infected people. Today there are almost 2.5 million so-called “laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 cases”. In autumn, the Sars-CoV-2 infection numbers climb again. A second, much larger wave is rolling in. The 46-year-old bio-computer scientist Prof. Lars Kaderali from the University of Greifswald simulates the course of the pandemic right from the start. He also advises the state government of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. From Kaderali’s point of view, the second wave should have reacted more quickly and more consistently – similar to the first wave: “The reaction was very early and the numbers did not go up that much and therefore came down again quickly. And that was that too Reason why we actually had such a relaxed summer, “said Kaderali.

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In the last 480 corona deaths in the country, there were only eight autopsies – too few for adequate Covid-19 research. more

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Autopsies bring new knowledge – but hardly any in MV

At the end of March 2020, the RKI recommends not to perform autopsies. They are too dangerous. At the same time, forensic medicine at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf starts autopsy of infected people. In total, they will examine 735 dead in 2020. For comparison: In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, almost 40 autopsies were carried out on and with those who had died from Covid 19 in Rostock and Greifswald by the end of February 2021. “The big advantage would have been that you could have followed the spread of the virus right from the start. Because the larger the number, the greater the statement of how many patients were involved in the brain or other organs – not just the lungs,” he says Director of Rostock Forensic Medicine, Prof. Andreas Büttner.

Büttner is convinced that this would have been very important, especially in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. “Because we are practically the model country for the aging population.” One could well have examined to what extent the elderly have peculiarities and how one can protect them particularly. With the first autopsies, the North German pathologists realized that the virus led to a type of pneumonia that was hardly known until then, said Büttner. The acute lung damage causes the organ to fill with fluids and gas exchange in the lungs is no longer possible. The patients are suffocating internally. Blood clots are also often found, which can lead to cardiovascular failure. Almost all of the deceased had a previous illness – sometimes seriously and repeatedly, such as from high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer or cirrhosis of the liver. Most of the deceased are over 80 years old.

Understand long-term consequences better

According to Büttner, autopsies could provide new insights into long-term damage to survivors – for example by looking at which organs are infected by the virus. “These are also important questions that ultimately complete the overall picture of ‘Corona as a disease’. In addition to an inflamed lungs, the heart muscle can also become inflamed. The entire nervous system and the brain can also be affected. The damage to the brain can in turn cause epileptic attacks or strokes.

A few highly infectious people are responsible for most infections

It is unclear why some infected people are more contagious or why they spread viruses more and for longer than others. There are suspicions that it could be due to their immune system or the distribution of their virus receptors. According to the virologist Drosten, only 20 percent of those infected are responsible for 80 percent of the infections.

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Two symbolic representations of the coronavirus in different colors. © imago images / Alexander Limbach Photo: Alexander Limbach

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There is evidence of the British corona mutation in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Another case from Schwerin became known on Saturday. more

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Virus mutations are of concern to researchers

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The Greifswald bioinformatician Prof. Lars Kaderali is developing a model for the course of the pandemic.
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The first people will be vaccinated in Germany on December 27, 2020. Shortly before that, there is the first evidence that the British virus mutation B.1.7.7 has arrived in Germany. It’s not the only mutant, but it could cause a different course of the pandemic. “Infections with this mutant are increasing. There are still a few, but the number is increasing”, says the Greifswald bioinformatician Kaderali. Think of it like two pandemics that run in parallel: “One with the normal virus that goes down – and a second with the mutated virus that goes up.”

According to the Rostock infectiologist Reisinger, just under 6 percent of those who tested positive in MV in mid-February 2021 were infected with the British Corona variant. Ascending trend. That corresponds to the national average. Reisinger assumes that the British variant will prevail in Germany and lead to increasing numbers. “The question that arises is whether the incidence is still falling despite the new British variant gaining acceptance. If so, we can look to the future in a relaxed manner.”

The origin and transmission of the coronavirus are still unclear

One year after the virus broke out, the Chinese government allows scientists from the World Health Organization (WHO) to enter. They stay in Wuhan for four weeks and visited, among other things, the fresh market, the high-security laboratory where research is carried out on coronaviruses, and hospitals. They do not have any “dramatic new findings”, says the Danish WHO member, the food researcher Peter Ben Embarek, at the final press conference on February 11, 2021: “All the work that was carried out on the virus and the attempt to identify its origin continue to indicate suggests a natural reservoir of this virus in bat populations. ” The fresh produce market does not appear to have been the only transmission point in Wuhan. How the virus was transmitted to humans is to be further researched. The WHO team considers a laboratory accident “very unlikely.”

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