How to deal with increasing incidences in Germany? The virologist Klaus Stöhr advises against using the mask again. On the contrary: infections could help vaccinated people to protect themselves against corona in the long term. This would shorten the pandemic.
A summer wave of the corona virus is emerging, the incidence in Germany is increasing again. The cause is the spread of the omicron subvariants BA.5 and BA.4. At the same time, the long-standing corona measures have now been reduced to a minimum. The Munich virologist and epidemiologist Klaus Stöhr does not see this as a problem, but as an opportunity. Because infections with Sars-CoV-2 in combination with vaccinations could mean "entry into the endemic", he said in the ZDF morning magazine.
Stöhr therefore does not hold anything against a renewed expansion of mask wearing. Anyone who demands this is taking “people the opportunity to come to terms with the corona virus in the long term”. Everyone will become infected at some point, according to the virologist, which cannot be prevented - "and it's better to go in vaccinated". Because a broad and long-lasting protection against corona is only built up by an infection.
Stöhr does not see the risk of the health systems being overloaded in the summer wave. There is no increase in the number of patients treated in the clinics, the situation is "as relaxed as one could hope for in the summer". He points to Portugal, where sub-variant BA.5 had pushed up infections, but the situation in hospitals was relaxed. The omicron variants, while more contagious, are considered less dangerous.
Stöhr therefore advises seizing the opportunity: “If you push the infections further back with very conservative measures, then you have even more cases further back in winter, where the pressure and probability of infection is greater,” warns Stöhr. Allowing infections in combination with vaccinations in the summer wave will therefore end the pandemic more quickly.
Charité virologist Christian Drosten also referred to the protective long-term effect of natural infections in vaccinated people. "The ideal immunization is that you have a complete vaccine immunization, with three doses and on the basis of this immunization you are then infected with the virus for the first time and also for the second and third time and that you develop mucosal immunity as a result without accepting severe courses have to," said Drosten in the NDR podcast. Anyone who has gone through this is probably immune for years and will not reinfect themselves again. The intensity of the infection determines how persistent the immune protection is.
Like Stöhr, the immunologist Andreas Radbruch also sees an opportunity in the summer wave: "From an immunological point of view, a summer infection after complete vaccination is the best thing that can happen," said the head of the German Rheumatism Research Center Berlin (DRFZ) of the "Bild "-Newspaper. Data showed that vaccination and infection together provided significantly better protection against transmission of the virus than vaccination or infection alone - "this could become an advantage in the fall and slow down the spread of the virus".
In an interview with ntv, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach recommended sticking to wearing masks indoors even during the summer wave. With a view to the risk groups, he said: “I would actually recommend a fourth vaccination to them.” But you can't vaccinate the wave: "The vaccines aren't strong enough for that."
