Doctors and politicians alike agree that Bavaria may face the fourth corona wave in autumn or winter. The only question is: With what force will this wave roll towards the Free State? With a view to the number of cases, which has been rising for around three weeks, Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU) speaks of a “course setting” that is currently taking place. The highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus is now predominant in the infection process with 84.85 percent. “The topic of vaccination is now the central message to get the autumn off to a good start,” he says, “and we all have a responsibility to society as a whole.”
If there is a dam that can break a corona wave, it would be the vaccination against Sars-CoV-2, is Holetschek’s mantra. One reason to be vigilant arises from the figures that are available to the minister in addition to the currently lower willingness to vaccinate in Bavaria. Last summer, according to Holetschek, the nationwide incidence value was “significantly lower than it is now”. For July 28, 2020, the Robert Koch Institute reported a seven-day incidence of 5.0. This value was currently 13.4 on Wednesday – more than twice as high. In addition, after the summer holidays, the risk of infection is likely to increase. “In 2020, the number of people returning from travel were definitely a driver for the pandemic issue,” says Holetschek.
“We saw in three waves how merciless this virus can be. We shouldn’t take this risk a fourth time,” warned the Munich immunologist Clemens Wendtner on Wednesday. Wendtner, chief physician at the Infectious Diseases Clinic at Schwabing Hospital, emphasized that in order to stay one step ahead of the virus, it was important to think about autumn now and “increase the speed of vaccinations once more”.
“With the relaxation, of course, people will come together again, and then it will hit exactly those who have not yet been vaccinated,” says virologist Ulrike Protzer from the Technical University of Munich. The current delta variant of the corona pathogen “now allows almost no more negligence”. But precisely there lies one of the problems that ultimately leads to increasing incidence values. Too many people no longer take protective measures against Corona as seriously as they did in the months before – be it when putting on masks, be it when observing distance rules. In June and July 2021, according to the Ministry of the Interior, the Bavarian police “carried out around 36,000 checks and found around 450 violations” in connection with the mask requirement in local public transport alone.
“It is us humans who take this virus for a walk. And we determine whether it can spread,” says Protzer. When it comes to how Bavaria can look to the coming autumn, she says: “With eager attention.” Protzer believes that vaccination is unlikely – and there are also scientific reasons for this. “That only makes sense if you can really eradicate the pathogen,” she emphasizes. What works for polio or smallpox does not lead to success with Sars corona viruses, since the pathogen continues to find a distribution area in “animal reservoirs”. In addition, many countries lagged extremely behind Western countries in terms of vaccination.
Protzer observes the declining willingness to vaccinate in Bavaria with concern. In general, she certifies that the state government “has a very good view of the situation”, but she also says: “What is certainly important is that you think again about how you can specifically improve vaccination rates in Bavaria.” Also to understand “why we are worse than other federal states when it comes to vaccination”. The figures from the Robert Koch Institute are not very flattering for the Free State: In a comparison of the 16 federal states, Bavaria was in twelfth place on Wednesday morning for first vaccinations with 58.9 percent, and only 13th for the fully vaccinated with 47.9 percent – far behind the comparable state of North Rhine-Westphalia. To contain the pandemic, 85 percent of the population would have to be vaccinated. Holetschek is relying on special vaccination campaigns to bring the vaccination campaign back to life. “On Tuesday I saw a long line in Nuremberg on the way to the vaccination bus,” he says. But the rush of people willing to vaccinate has not met expectations everywhere.
On Monday, Holetschek will chair the conference of health ministers. “We have to talk about the topic of booster vaccinations beyond the topic of testing in nursing homes and old people’s homes,” he says. If Ruth Waldmann, the health policy spokeswoman for the SPD parliamentary group, has its way, this should also be on the table: “For many weeks I have been calling for systematic vaccination programs to be organized for the schoolchildren in such a way that everyone is complete at the beginning of the new school year can be vaccinated. “
This aspect gives rise to hope: Bavaria’s intensive care units are currently only two percent occupied with Covid 19 patients. Roland Engehausen, the managing director of the Bavarian Hospital Society, sees the clinics as “well equipped” for the autumn. Here he is in line with the virologist Ulrike Protzer, who advises “not only to look at the incidence values, but also at the hospital admissions”. The number of Covid-19 cases will “no longer rise as quickly as before” due to the increasing protection of the vulnerable population groups.