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Explaining complicated things simply: that’s the statement of virologist Sandra Ciesek, who now takes turns with Christian Drosten on NDR’s “Coronavirus Update” podcast. She managed to do this in her first issue.
New cast on “Coronavirus Update”: On the award-winning NDR podcast, Frankfurt virologist Sandra Ciesek was heard for the first time on Tuesday, who from now on shares weekly broadcast slot with her Berlin colleague Christian Drosten. Last week she had talked about a five-day “cooldown”: and thus caused some confusion.
“He introduced this term and wanted to use it to express more than isolation and quarantine,” Sandra Ciesek said on the podcast when NDR science journalist Korinna Hennig asked. “Mr. Drosten was referring to events in a group, where you really know when the outbreak occurred and where the contact was.” But that is often difficult to say. “It was done with this that everyone should be quarantined for 5 days and that’s not really what he meant.” For example, according to Ciesek, the idea of a “cool-down” applies to travelers returning home.
Isolation or quarantine? Donkey Bridge by Sandra Ciesek
“Currently they are being tested at the airport, but theoretically they could not have been infected until the day before or even on the flight and then they would be in the incubation period,” says Sandra Ciesek, director of the Institute of Medical Virology at the Frankfurt University Hospital. “Since we know that the incubation period lasts an average of five to six days, a test done at home on the fifth day would have a relatively high degree of certainty that it would detect most infections,” says Ciesek.
Ciesek also explained the difference between quarantine and isolation quite understandably, with a donkey bridge: “I remember it like this: isolation is for the infected, so both with ‘i’, as quarantine is for people of contact, so both with ‘k’, “Ciesek said. “Although, of course, the quarantine is not written with ‘k'”.
Ciesek is planning a cold study with children
And what does Ciesek do in these times when his daughter has a cold? After all, it is even more difficult for children than adults to infer a disease based on symptoms. “That’s not really easy to answer. I would watch her for a day and look at her throat and ears, but of course not all laymen can do that.” Especially since upper respiratory infections are very common in young children, especially in the cold season.
In fact, she and her team are planning a study on the subject. Together with practicing pediatricians, she wants to test 1,000 children who come to the pediatrician with a Sars-CoV-2 cold. “The number of positive tests is currently very low in Germany and the probability that it has one of the other 100 viruses that cause respiratory infections is certainly higher at this time.”
That gives Ciesek hope for fall
A 2003 Hong Kong study gives the researcher hope for the fall, when Sars, also a corona virus, was rampant there. The scientists compared the number of respiratory infections that year with those of previous years. For fear of getting infected, most people in Asia would have followed the so-called AHA rules back then: distance, hygiene, daily masks. Data for four pathogens, including influenza, were compared.
“The behavior has been seen to cause all of these infections to decrease significantly over the months,” Ciesek said. There was even a control virus: hepatitis B. Here the numbers did not drop: the virus is not transmitted through the air, but through sexual contact. “The study gives me some hope for the fall and winter. I think the AHA rules will also make other viral infections less common.”
However, it is very important that risk groups get vaccinated. The groups of people to be vaccinated depend on the number of doses available, Ciesek said. The proposal to vaccinate all children against the flu is “certainly a good idea,” but only if the vaccine is sufficient. “It is very important that precise criteria are now established so that the cans are distributed in the most sensible way possible,” Ciesek warned.
