It was a report that caused a stir shortly before Christmas: The new Corona variant Omikron is already more widespread in Munich than expected, reported a research team from the Tropical Institute at the Ludwig Maximilians University Hospital, which had been collecting samples from sewers and sewage works for a long time examined. Because infected people excrete at least fragments of the virus, this can be proven with molecular analyzes. Until the beginning of December, no RNA strands from Omikron could be found, and then since December 6th – when it was commonly thought in Germany that the variant had virtually never arrived in the country.
Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU) rated the Munich analysis as an early warning system to slow down the spread of omicons. “Wastewater monitoring can be a good seismograph in a pandemic. That is why various pilot projects are running, also via the federal government, so we have to stick with it,” Holetschek told the SZ. Before a possible institutionalization, however, the government wants to wait and see what ongoing projects will result – also linked to the federal government. In the opinion of the Greens in the Landtag, wastewater monitoring is progressing too hesitantly, too little strategically. They demand that the system be rolled out across Bavaria immediately and that the results be included in the published data as fixed parameters of the pandemic, such as incidence or hospitalization. “Omikron sits on our necks,” says health policy spokeswoman Christina Haubrich. “We have learned: what we never have in a pandemic is time.”
The work of the Munich tropical researchers is not an isolated case
In spring 2021, the EU Commission asked the member states to use such wastewater monitoring more systematically and to include the results in their national strategies to contain the pandemic. Now the work of the Munich tropical researchers is not an isolated case. In December, at the request of the Greens, the Ministry of Health listed what is currently taking place in the context: The Omikron analysis at the Tropical Institute was carried out as part of a project co-financed by the Ministry of Science. At the Technical University of Munich, Chair for Urban Water Management, the federally funded project “Wastewater Biomarker CoV-2” is based – with investigations in Erlangen, Augsburg, Freising, Starnberg, Munich, Weiden and in the Berchtesgadener Land. In addition, according to the ministry, there are municipal projects financed from their own resources. In addition, the federal government is working on an approach to introduce systematic monitoring; To this end, 20 pilot locations are being set up nationwide, the “practical implementation” of wastewater monitoring should be tested. The application deadline was in mid-December, and further details have not been made public since then.
On the basis of these results, it should then be decided whether comprehensive surveillance could also be implemented in Bavaria. Holtschek says: “The question is still open: If this is an early warning system, which conclusions can be drawn at which point, so how is the message implemented in a profitable manner?” There is already a gain in knowledge as to where, for example, Omikron grows up. “The projects, also in Bavaria, will provide further insights into where and under what conditions the monitoring can best be used, in rural areas or in metropolitan areas, and what political aspects we can derive from it. That must be clarified and coordinated. Then we will benefit from this data. “
The Greens do not understand the reluctance
Christina Haubrich, on the other hand, says she doesn’t understand the reluctance. “Actually, all of that was needed yesterday.” Her suggestion: The Free State itself should take the instrument in hand and install it in all cities with more than 150,000 inhabitants, it is not an “insurmountable expense”. “You just have to do it without waiting for the covenant.” In the summer, a motion by the government factions CSU and Free Voters in the state parliament demanded a report on this from the government in the health committee; it’s still pending. It should also be checked whether Bavaria is promoting municipal projects with the Corona special fund. Even then, opposition factions insisted on speed, the Greens, but also the FDP. Their health expert Dominik Spitzer had spoken of an “ignored opportunity” that the government must exhaust everything to prevent the next wave. What was meant was the delta variant.