The director of the Institute for Virology at the Berlin Charité, Christian Drosten, has described the omicron variant of the corona virus as an “opportunity”.
The weakened infection with the variant is based on the vaccination “something like a moving train that you jump on,” he told the Berlin “Tagesspiegel am Sonntag”. At some point you have to jump on this train, “otherwise you won’t get anywhere”. Because there is no alternative to the fact that sooner or later everyone will be infected with Sars-Cov-2.
One cannot “in the long term receive the immune protection of the entire population every few months with a booster vaccination,” said the virologist: “The virus has to do that.” However, Drosten emphasized that this was only on the basis of vaccination protection anchored in the general population be possible.
The population immunity among adults is developing in a clear direction: “The population is building up immunity and maintaining it.” Germany is now “in the process” of declaring the pandemic over and being able to declare the endemic phase.
“But because of the high proportion of older people in the population, we have to do this in Germany through vaccinations. Far too many people would die from natural infections,” said Drosten in the “Tagesspiegel”.
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Germany has already “managed quite a bit of this path through vaccinations”, but must now “come to the end so that we can enter the endemic phase in the course of 2022 and declare the pandemic situation over”.
When asked whether we will ever live like we did before the pandemic, Drosten said: “I’m completely sure of that.”
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