Not only the corona virus is causing us problems this summer. At the same time, numerous people contract other respiratory infections, many of them the flu. Statistician Christian Hesse is worried.
Unlike in the past two pandemic years, we are currently experiencing a summer wave of corona infections. The cases have been increasing since the end of May, the incidence has been over 700 for a few days. And it is not only the corona virus that is currently infecting an unusually large number of people for this season. Other respiratory diseases are also spreading rapidly. We spoke to statistician Christian Hesse about what this means for the situation in autumn.
In the past seven days, the Robert Koch Institute reported 552,883 new corona cases. The incidence fell over the weekend from 765.9 on Friday to 664.9 on Monday – according to the RKI website, the federal states did not report any new cases by Sunday night. In reality, the value should therefore be significantly higher.
Apart from that, the incidence values are currently not very reliable anyway, as statistician Christian Hesse clarifies – “because they are very error-prone.” The values are only reported incidences. “If you calculate back from the situation in the intensive care units, we can assume that the actual incidence values are about three times as high, so that we are dealing with an infection process with real incidences of more than 2000,” he explains.
Christian Hesse is a mathematician and head of the Department of Mathematical Statistics at the University of Stuttgart. Hesse’s research focuses on stochastics, the mathematics of random events. He has advised the German Bundestag, the Federal Constitutional Court and the US government on mathematical and statistical issues.
The reason for the high number of unreported cases is that fewer and fewer people are having a positive rapid test confirmed by a PCR test. “Compared to mid-April, only every third person does that,” says Hesse. And only positive PCR test results are included in the RKI data. “Due to this test gap, the numbers reported by the RKI are becoming less and less useful and can only serve as a rough guide.”
We are currently being caught by a corona summer wave. “But that’s not all,” emphasizes the data expert. “At the same time we are affected by an equally strong wave of flu.”
The RKI data, which is reliable on this point, showed that there were 1.2 million doctor consultations for acute respiratory diseases in Germany in the last week, most of them flu. “This value is three times as high as is usual in the summer months,” warns Hesse. “This summer, seasonality will not help us with either Corona or the flu.”
“It is therefore not surprising that this combined double wave of corona and flu is also reflected in hospitalizations and the situation in the intensive care units,” Hesse continues. Over the past four weeks, the number of corona patients who need intensive treatment has doubled.
“Last summer, on the other hand, we had neither a corona nor a flu wave. In this period a year ago, the incidences were around 10.”
A year ago, however, there were 20 percent more corona deaths because of the Delta variant. “This is due to the lower level of danger of the current Omikron BA.5 variant compared to the Delta. At Delta, 1 in 250 people infected died last summer, at Omikron this year only 1 in 2100 people infected with symptoms.”
But according to Hesse, that is no reason to give the all-clear: It has led to a certain carelessness in large parts of the population towards Omikron and both the mask discipline and the test discipline have decreased significantly. “Furthermore, the current corona rules are very loose,” warns the statistician. “One should not forget, however, that omicron is far more contagious than delta, so far more people will be infected. All of this fuels the summer wave.”
The current double wave is also worrying because it shows no signs of flattening out due to the extreme summer heat and the start of the school holidays in some federal states. “At the end of August and beginning of September, she will probably experience a significant surge in infection due to the returnees,” warns Hesse.
“According to model calculations, this surge in infection will lead to an even steeper autumn wave from the already high level of the summer wave,” predicts the data expert. Since by then the protective effect of immunization had decreased in many people due to the extremely slow pace of the vaccination campaign, the virus would hit a large number of potentially less protected people in the autumn.
“Therefore, a very serious situation is to be expected in the autumn, also in the intensive care units,” warns Hesse. The most likely scenario is that the autumn and winter wave will be even stronger than the last omicron wave. “We see that in the current situation in Australia. The incidence of infection in the southern hemisphere in the winter there, with very high numbers of infections, already reflects what awaits us in our own winter.”
The very high number of new infections to be expected over the next few months is also worrying and medically significant in that around 4.4 percent of them are affected by long-Covid, i.e. they are still suffering from significant symptoms four weeks after infection.
According to Hesse, how far the number of infections increases depends on a number of imponderables. In particular, from the contact behavior of the population, he says. “Even if the majority of the population were to behave more cautiously again, that would not be enough. Because the pandemic does not follow the majority principle.” Rather, a small minority of infected people cause the vast majority of new infections. “These are the careless frequent or super spreaders with numerous contacts,” says Hesse.
However, he does not expect a lockdown, unless a new and very dangerous virus variant should appear. Then such an extreme measure could be considered. “There is currently no such virus mutant in sight anywhere in the world,” says the data expert with reassurance. “The fear that the BA2.75 mutant, which is widespread in India and has already been detected here, could trigger its own wave of infections has not been confirmed either.”
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Therefore, according to Hesse, we would do well to start preparing and taking countermeasures for the fall now. It is necessary to greatly increase the pace of the vaccination campaign, which is currently very sluggish. Just before Christmas 2021, 1.6 million vaccine doses were vaccinated every day. At the moment there are less than 40,000. “In addition, the vaccination campaign should also be extended to include flu vaccinations, advises Hesse.
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