The virologist Christian Drosten expects “a lot of illness-related absences” in the companies – and corrects himself: The pandemic will not subside as quickly as he thought. The incidence jumps to 618 on Friday.
The virologist Christian Drosten expects a very high number of new corona cases after the summer holidays in Germany. “I hope that the school holidays will slow down the increase in the number of cases somewhat. But from September, I’m afraid we will have very high numbers of cases,” said the head of the virology department at the Berlin Charité in an interview with the mirror. If nothing is done, there will be “a lot of sick leave” in working life.
“We are actually seeing an exponential increase in the number of cases again,” warned Drosten. “The BA.5 variant is just very transmissible, and people lose their transmission protection from the last vaccination at the same time.” In the interview, Drosten corrected his prediction from January that the pandemic will largely subside over the course of the year, also thanks to the vaccinations: “I no longer believe that by the end of the year we will have the impression that the pandemic is over.”
New variant BA.5 already accounts for half of the infections
The seven-day incidence in Germany rose to 618.2 on Friday morning. The day before, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) had given it as 532.9. As expected, the BA.5 pathogen is now also predominant in Germany according to official data. According to the RKI weekly report on Covid-19 from Thursday evening. However, the information relates to the week before last, and higher values can currently be assumed. The RKI speaks of an increase in the seven-day incidence of 23 percent compared to the previous week. “The number of outbreaks in old people’s and nursing homes as well as in medical treatment facilities has increased compared to the previous week.” In view of the development, the RKI continues to call for compliance with the recommendations for avoiding infection: keep your distance, observe hygiene rules, wear a mask, ventilate and use the Corona warning app. Vaccination has not lost its importance “due to its high protective effect against a severe course” even in diseases caused by omicron.
The RKI also reports that the burden on the health care system, especially in the intensive care area, has increased again slightly in the past week. According to the Divi intensive care register, the number of people infected with corona treated there has been increasing again for a few days: After a good 600 patients at the beginning of the month, it was 810 as of Thursday. For comparison: At the height of the pandemic in the winter months, there were sometimes several thousand at the same time.