RKI: So far, the course at Omikron has been mild
On the Omikron variant, the RKI wrote in its weekly report published on Thursday evening: “Previous reporting data on symptoms indicate a rather mild course in infected people with a full vaccination or booster vaccination.” However, experts have always emphasized that with the expected high number of infected people in the course of the rapid spread of the omicron, a large number of people will become more seriously ill at the same time and will have to be treated in hospital.
In an interview with the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, the virologist Christian Drosten said in response to the question of whether a lockdown was needed in Germany, it was necessary to wait and see “whether and how the measures that are now in force and that have been followed up again will work”. If the contact restrictions do not work as hoped, one could consider restrictions to which only already boosted people have access – what he referred to as “1G”.
Twice vaccinated people are protected from severe courses even with Omikron, “but practically not against infection,” said the virologist at the Berlin Charité. Virus transmission in the event of infection is also hardly reduced. “But those who have recently been boosted are likely to contribute less to the spread and are noticeably protected against the disease. At Delta, 2G and 3G may be enough, but now Omikron is writing the rules.”
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