According to a draft for the Infection Protection Act, there should be stricter corona rules again from October. A group of experts had already called for an end to government measures in advance. Epidemiologist Timo Ulrichs explains why we still need action.
According to official figures from the Robert Koch Institute, 1.6 million people in Germany are currently infected with Corona. The number of unreported cases is likely to be significantly higher. Due to the high number of infections, hospitalization rates have also increased again in recent weeks. On average, up to 200 people die again every day.
Not good conditions for autumn, which according to Karl Lauterbach could be “catastrophic” if the number of infections continues to rise and more threatening variants appear. For this reason, according to a draft for the new Infection Protection Act, stricter measures should be in place again from October. For example, federal states can again impose mask requirements – there should also be a test requirement in schools again.
Last week, a group of experts led by physicians Thomas Voshaar and Matthias Schrappe and medical statistician Gerd Antes called for an end to government measures in a new position paper. “From an epidemiological and medical perspective, the virus is no longer a threat to the health system and the population, based on the current state of affairs,” it says. Because Covid, as a serious and life-threatening disease, is practically no longer seen in hospitals.
That is why Voshaar and his colleagues are also convinced that, given the current situation, no further measures will be necessary in the coming autumn. School closures, constant testing or even a mask requirement are no longer necessary – no quarantine either. Only risk groups would have to continue to be protected.
Epidemiologist Timo Ulrichs from Berlin is critical of these demands. “We still have to fight the pandemic,” he said when asked by FOCUS online. Because we would not have reached the endemic phase either in Germany or worldwide. “Angela Merkel’s sentence applies here: ‘We are only safe when everyone is safe,'” emphasizes Ulrichs. This applies above all to the fair distribution of vaccines worldwide.
Urlichs also contradicts the expert group’s claim that the virus no longer poses a threat: “Even though we’ve gotten used to the situation, I think that around 150 to 200 deaths every day are too many to claim it exists no longer a danger to the population,” he replies. “Even the health care system is not yet on the safe side: it may very well be that we will reach the capacity limits of the intensive care and normal wards again when the pandemic wave builds up on the summer wave in autumn – even if the courses are proportionately less severe “, the epidemiologist points out.
Ulrichs therefore considers a lifting of the obligation to isolate positive people, as demanded by Voshaar and colleagues and as already practiced in some neighboring countries, to be dangerous. Ulrichs also believes that the reasoning of many supporters that the staff shortage can be solved in this way is wrong.
“Giving up isolation and quarantine on the grounds that it would keep too many people away from work is not a valid argument,” says the epidemiologist. “By opening all doors for the spread of the virus (especially if the obligation to isolate is given up), many more people would be absent through illness than through isolation,” explains Ulrichs.
With regard to vaccination, the group of experts led by Voshaar and Schrappe calls for children, adolescents and young adults to be excluded from the vaccination recommendation. If you take a severe course and prevent deaths as a criterion, effectiveness for this group cannot be proven, so the argument goes. Because young, healthy people do not have a high risk of a severe course with fatal consequences.
Although Ulrichs agrees with this argument because the numbers prove it, as an epidemiologist he sees it differently. “It can be said that nationwide vaccination is more likely to lead to the creation of basic immunity than just vaccinating risk groups. “In addition, this consideration ignores the fact that vaccination also greatly reduces the risk of developing long-Covid in younger people,” Ulrichs points out.
Ulrichs therefore does not share the optimistic attitude of the group of experts with regard to the coming months, for which no further measures are required. “We would all like to reach this state, but unfortunately we are not there yet,” he explains.
The draft for the Infection Protection Act from the Federal Health and Federal Ministry of Justice provides for a graduated corona timetable for the upcoming autumn and winter from October 1st. The measures are to apply from October 1, 2022 to April 7, 2023. Next, the cabinet will deal with the proposals, and then it will be up to the Bundestag.
