Is Corona over now and everything like before?
Weeks ago, Germany’s best-known virologist Christian Drosten proclaimed the end of the pandemic, only to make it clear later that he had been misunderstood and that the end of the pandemic could not be announced. You can only look at this in hindsight. the virus coronavirus 2">Sars-CoV-2 is still in circulation, albeit much less common and with milder disease progression in the event of an infection.
The virologists are observing that the pandemic is causing a “endemic low” has developed. As with the flu, it is expected that COVID-19 will appear in waves again and again. The number of infections then depends on vaccination rates and, above all, on immunization in the population.
The virologist Martin Stürmer had only given the all-clear to a limited extent and warned of caution. The head of the laboratory for interdisciplinary medicine and diagnostics in Frankfurt am Main still considers the vaccinations to be useful.
Leif Erik Sander, Director of the Clinic for Infectious Diseases at the Charité in Berlin, says that it will have to be observed very closely in the future whether the vaccine protection will bring peace of mind in the long term when new variants appear.
In Germany, the corona vaccination currently protects primarily against severe disease progression of the widespread variants. The World Health Organization currently only refers to omicron with its various sublineages as “worrying“.
Could other corona variants become dangerous?
That’s not out of the question. Especially since Corona is far from over in other regions of the world, especially in China. Nevertheless, we don’t have to worry, says virologist Martin Stürmer.
He sees the possibility”that completely new variants are emerging in China because Corona is encountering a population there that has had little contact with the virus so far – be it through vaccinations or infections.”
Therefore, the virus could take new paths in evolution. However, striker does not think it is too likely that a new variant will emerge in China that will “will hit clinically harder“.
