Drosten declares the corona pandemic over
“This winter we are experiencing the first endemic wave with Sars-Cov-2, in my opinion the pandemic is over,” says the Berlin virologist Christian Drosten. He mentions one restriction, which he does not consider likely.
Dhe head of virology at the Berlin Charité, Christian Drosten, considers the corona pandemic in Germany to be over. “This winter we are experiencing the first endemic wave with Sars-Cov-2, in my opinion the pandemic is over,” said Drosten in an interview with the “Tagesspiegel”.“. After this winter, the immunity of the population will be so broad and resilient that the virus will hardly be able to get through in the summer. The only restriction he named was another mutational leap. “But I don’t expect that anymore at the moment either.”
Regarding the situation in China, where the corona virus is currently spreading massively after the abandonment of the no-Covid policy, Drosten said: “The big mistake in China was that there was no awareness of vaccination among the population, especially among the elderly .” In his opinion, the vaccination campaign in Germany and Europe was the decisive step in combating the pandemic.
The virologist defended the measures to contain the virus: “It was never about stopping the pandemic, it was clear from the start that this was not possible. But if nothing had been done, then in Germany in the waves up to Delta there would have been a million deaths or more. So you had to reduce contacts.”
The intensive care physician Christian Karagiannidis had previously stated that he expected the corona pandemic to end after this winter. “I firmly expect that the pandemic will now increasingly expire,” said the member of the German government’s Corona Expert Council the editorial network Germany (RND). Surely one or the other small wave will follow. “But we notice that the immunity level of the population is solid and we have significantly fewer Covid patients in the intensive care units.”
Karagiannidis is also President of the German Society for Internal Intensive Care Medicine and Emergency Medicine. He thinks it is unlikely that a dangerous corona variant will spread again in Germany. The defense against corona viruses apparently works very well, he said with regard to the immunity through antibodies and T cells. “We see that the number of serious illnesses is decreasing more and more. I don’t think we’ll see a setback again.”