[ad_1]
The Austrian virologist is optimistic that there will probably be decisive results “in the next few weeks or months.”
Austrian virologist Florian Krammer, who works in New York, remains optimistic about the early availability of a coronavirus vaccine. There will probably be decisive results “within the next few weeks or months”, then the vaccines can be administered, he said Sunday night in ORF “In the center”. In Europe we will have a safe vaccine ”, emphasized Martin Selmayr, Head of Representation of the European Commission in Austria.
All testing phases would pass, Selmayr said. However, it lowered expectations of rapid availability for all population groups. With Covax there is “a global initiative for the development and fair distribution of a vaccine,” she explained. Above all, distribution will take time and you have to be patient. There will be no “vaccine nationalism” or “Europe first.” “Risk groups and, of course, medical personnel come first,” Selmayr said.
Against the closure of borders
Expect a vaccine on the US market by the end of the year, reported Krammer, who is connected from New York. Whether she will have a vaccine in Austria in December is “questionable.” The global market is very divided. For the World Health Organization (WHO) it is particularly important “to ensure that the poorest countries also have access,” said WHO consultant Ilona Kickbusch, who came from Switzerland. She hoped that next summer she would begin vaccinating 20 percent of the world’s population, with a focus on high-risk groups.
“I don’t think the border closures can have a positive development,” Krammer said when asked about the drastic measures at the beginning of the pandemic and the different strategies currently in countries with rapidly increasing numbers. “The virus is almost everywhere,” emphasized the virologist. “It was not the European Union that closed its borders,” Selmayr said. She is pleased that “more proportionate measures” have been taken in the second phase of the crisis. To contain the pandemic, Kickbusch called for a “good testing strategy that also allows tracing of contagions” instead of closing borders. This requires “incredibly good data”, which is not yet available in some countries, said the WHO adviser.
The director of the University Clinic for Internal Medicine in Innsbruck, Günter Weiss, had previously emphasized at the “ZIB 2 am Sonntag” on the various developments in Austria and some neighboring countries that “a single point in time should not be overestimated” in the pandemic. It is a “wave motion”. According to the infectologist, a situation similar to that in Austria and the Czech Republic could soon be possible in Germany, which currently has a relatively good number of cases.
>>> To retransmission
(WHAT)
