[ad_1]
The new wave of pandemic in the fall must be fought with new vaccines. There should also be better cooperation and further safeguards.
“In the autumn and winter we have to deal with a severe wave of the Corona virus,” said Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach after a two-day conference with state ministers. Heads of departments will meet again in early July to discuss specific safeguards in the fall.
Most in Germany think that masks should be worn indoors in autumn and winter. 77 percent of people over 65 expressed in favor of this measure, in a survey conducted by ARD. While 48 percent of people aged 18 to 34 support this idea. Masks are currently mandatory only on public transport.
tests
Much of German policy on the Corona is currently revolving around free citizen tests, which will be discontinued at the end of this month. Currently there is still the right to at least one free antigen test per week at test sites by staff trained without cause or symptom. It is still unclear how things will proceed from July. When it comes to testing funding, the states are of the opinion that this should be done by the federal government.
A new vaccination campaign is planned for the fall. In current studies, there is growing evidence that the fourth vaccination for people over 60 is of great benefit, said Health Minister Lauterbach. The best vaccine should be made available to anyone who wants to be vaccinated.
Valneva is young, Novovax for people over the age of twelve
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has meanwhile given the green light to the use of the Corona vaccine by the Franco-Austrian company Valneva. The Valneva vaccine uses technology similar to classical influenza vaccines, should be stored in normal refrigerators and can be used in people aged 18 to 50 years. This means that there are currently six vaccines against the Corona virus in use in the EU.
With the vaccine from the American manufacturer Novavax, children from the age of 12 can also be vaccinated in the future. EMA experts have now recommended extending the permit. The vaccine is already allowed in the EU for people over the age of 18 and, according to studies, has a protection against infection of about 80 percent.
20 million rescued from death
Researchers have calculated how many deaths have been avoided by vaccination. According to them, vaccines have prevented almost 20 million deaths from COVID-19 worldwide in the first year alone.
Experts say vaccines have halved the number of expected deaths. So write researchers at Imperial College London in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases. But the unfair distribution of vaccines is also being reflected in this issue, because the richer countries have benefited significantly more than the poorer ones.
Voluntary infection is a total mistake!
Christian Drosten, Director of the Institute of Virology in Berlin Charité, warns against deliberate infection with the Corona virus during the summer. “We must continue to avoid it as much as possible, also because of the risk of long-term consequences for Covid,” Drosten said in an interview with Spiegel. The infection recommendation, which is currently spreading on Twitter, is “a total nonsense”: “In summer, not so many people can be infected as to maintain a low number of Corona infections in winter.”
Christian Drosten
Drosten fears that the number of infected cases in September will again be very high. Because, as expected, the BA.5 virus is now prevalent in Germany. According to the weekly report from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), this type of virus currently infects over 50 percent of sick people in Germany.
The EU agrees on more co-operation
“The BA.5 variant is simply much more transmissible, while now at the same time many people are going through the phase of protection against vaccines,” warns Drosten. In other countries it can be seen that with the increase in the number of infected, the numbers of hospital treatments and deaths are also increasing.
In health crises like the Corona pandemic there should be much closer cooperation at EU level in the future. Negotiators from EU countries and the European Parliament have agreed to increase co-operation across member states’ national borders. To this end, the EU Commission should be able to declare for the first time a health emergency across the EU and thus trigger a coordinated approach, for example, to the purchase and storage of important goods ./DW
top channel
[ad_2]
Source link
