[ad_1]
The growing number of infections in Germany is bringing a new lockdown within reach. What if this time you just went through the pandemic and waited for it to get infected? Charité’s virologist Drosten and his colleagues disagree with a striking appeal.
An expert group around Charité’s chief virologist Christian Drosten sees Germany at the beginning of an exponential spread of the coronavirus. “Due to the explosive dynamics of infections that we see in all hotspots in Europe, there is reason to fear that beyond a certain threshold control over the infection process will be lost,” the scientists write in a Society statement. of Virology. Such a loss of control would quickly overwhelm healthcare systems. In Germany, this “is already the case, with very less than 20,000 new infections per day due to a lack of intensive care workers.” This would not only affect the treatment of Covid-19 patients, but also all medical care.
At the same time, virologists urgently warn against using a strategy to infect large parts of the population, the so-called herd immunity. An uncontrollable infection process would lead to “a growing increase in the number of deaths,” the newspaper continues. Even if retirees are strictly isolated, there are still other risk groups, “which are too numerous, too heterogeneous and, in some cases, undetected to be actively protected.” This applies to pregnant women, people who are overweight, cancer patients, diabetics, and people with other chronic diseases.
Protect only risk groups?
In their rejection, the researchers refer to the “Great Barrington Declaration”: according to this, all restrictions on public life, including distance rules and mask requirements, should be lifted immediately, while only groups of risk would be protected. In their statement, the virologists argue that neither the duration of immunity nor the long-term damage and possible complications after illness have been well enough investigated.
The group around Drosten’s emphatic conclusion on herd immunity: “We strongly reject this strategy, although of course we recognize the enormous burden on the population due to the drastic containment measures. However, we are convinced that the damage we will suffer immediately in case of an uncontrolled infection they also threaten indirectly, many times exceed these burdens and lead to a humanitarian and economic catastrophe “.
In addition to Drosten, other well-known colleagues signed the statement: Marco Binder, German Cancer Research Center Heidelberg, Melanie Brinkmann, Braunschweig University of Technology and Helmholtz Center for Infection Research Braunschweig, Isabella Eckerle, Geneva University Hospital, Switzerland , Beate Sodeik, Hannover Medical School and Friedemann Weber, Justus- Liebig University Giessen.
Earlier last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) had already warned against reliance on herd immunity through massive infections when fighting the corona pandemic. “Never in the history of healthcare has herd immunity been used as a strategy against an outbreak, much less a pandemic,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. This approach would be ethically and scientifically problematic.
