According to virologist Christian Drosten, the corona pandemic is over. “We are experiencing the first endemic wave with Sars-CoV-2 this winter, and in my opinion the pandemic is over,” said the head of virology at the Berlin University Hospital Charité in the “Tagesspiegel” (online Monday / print Tuesday).
After this winter, the immunity of the population will be so broad and resilient that the virus will hardly be able to get through in the summer. The only limitation mentioned by virology was another mutational leap. “But I don’t expect that anymore at the moment.”
In an interview with the editorial network Germany (RND), the intensive care physician Christian Karagiannidis, who is also a member of the Federal Government’s Corona Expert Council, answered in the affirmative whether the pandemic would be over after the winter. “I expect that the pandemic will now increasingly expire,” Karagiannidis told RND (Online Monday). Certainly there will still be one or the other small wave. However, the immunity situation of the population is solid and there are significantly fewer Covid patients in the intensive care units.
Several experts, such as the chairman of the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko), Thomas Mertens, now share the assessment that Corona is now an endemic. In his view, a pandemic is primarily defined by the fact that a globally unknown pathogen with which people have no immunological experience breaks into the population. That is no longer the case, Mertens said at the end of October.
