Germany’s most prestigious virologist harsh prognosis on future of COVID

When in October 2020 Sandra Ciesek, the director of Institute of Medical Virology of the University Clinic in Frankfurt, Germany, which has warned that the coronavirus will go “in crescendo” across Europe, the international scientific community has heeded its stern warning.

But renowned virologist, one of the most listened to the Old Continent, left another sentence that will have to speak.

In an interview with the Focus Magazine, the expert was clear in a request: it is necessary lower the euphoria until the vaccination process is complete.

Several countries, such as Italy, Canada and Spain, have given free rein to the combination of doses against the coronavirus, especially after concerns about cases of potentially fatal blood clots generated by the vaccine that had slowed application. AstraZeneca in many locations.

Last month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, The Moderna laboratory received a second dose of the vaccine against the coronavirus, after the first of AstraZeneca.

The researcher believes that vaccination will beat the pandemic “,but the virus will remain“.” It will likely become endemic, “says Ciesek, who notes:” However, the new coronavirus is not defeated. “

“It could be similar to the flu, where we have some sort of basic immunity. Some are vaccinated, others have had the flu all their lives, so they at least have partial immunity“explains Ciesek.

“There are always ‘new people’ coming into the world. If a child is born, it has no immune protection. At the latest at kindergarten age, he will meet for the first time a larger group of people and are likely to get infected. So, if children are not vaccinated against the virus, infections will recur over and over again. In the future, children in particular will be infected with Sars-CoV-2, ”Ciesek said.

On whether minors should be vaccinated, the German said: “It has not yet been decided whether all children, especially babies, will be routinely vaccinated in the future. Two points must be weighed: between the real benefit of vaccination and the fact that children usually do not get seriously ill“adds Ciesek.

“The question behind all of this is, what does the vaccine do for this child if it is very likely that the infection will only cause a cold? Parents will have to decide that in the future,” says the doctor.

She was also very critical of antigen testing which, in some countries, is freely sold in pharmacies. “Antigen tests are not suitable for individual diagnosis,” he said. Instead, he explained that they are useful if performed regularly for groups of people who meet again and again and cannot optimally adhere to the rules of hygiene. stressed, they will not break all the chains of infection, but many will.

Ciesek’s statements are along the same lines as those of Christian Drosten, Germany’s most reputable virologist, who warned a few months ago that rapid antigenic tests they cannot detect an infection even if it is in a highly contagious phase.

More than half (51.2%) of the German population, or 42.5 million people, have received at least one dose of the vaccine and 26.3 million (31.6%) are fully vaccinated, according to figures put updated by the government.