After the summer wave is before the autumn wave. This is already reflected in some key figures. The incidences are increasing. The BQ.1.1 mutation is spreading. Will a violent corona wave hit us or are we immune enough? Is there a dangerous variant? That’s what the experts say.
Corona numbers are rising again across Germany. Many experts had warned of an autumn wave. Others were more optimistic. An overview of what to expect from Corona in the cold season – virological and epidemiological. According to the Swiss virologist Isabella Eckerle, a “whole swarm of Sars-CoV-2” seems ready for the winter season.
The virologist Hendrik Streeck recently said in an interview with FOCUS online about the current danger situation: “It may well be that the feared massive wave will not occur.” From his point of view, the fact that we have very good immunity in the population speaks for it. “In the summer months alone, an estimated 30 percent of people in Germany had contact with the corona virus, so it is quite possible that there will be no strong autumn wave,” explained the expert.
Despite everything, it is good to make preparations. “Measures should only be used in the event of a specific risk. I don’t see that coming at the moment,” emphasized Streeck.
A new variant could pose a new threat. Of course, it is difficult to predict how Sars-CoV-2 will develop. However, experts around the world are observing very closely how the corona virus is changing. In a way, they “look in all directions with binoculars and we don’t see any new variant rolling in,” explained epidemiologist Alexander Kekulé in his podcast (episode 324) at the beginning of September.
“A new corona variant is to be expected in autumn or winter, which can escape the existing immunity to some extent,” predicted virologist Friedemann Weber at the request of FOCUS online.
Streeck agreed: “It is foreseeable that the virus will continue to develop. Such a virus is subject to selection pressure, so that further immune escape variants will emerge in the foreseeable future.” However, the question is always how relevant this is.
Because: “In the German population we probably now have an immunity of more than 95 percent. And that immunity isn’t just against areas that mutate, but other sections of the coronavirus as well. That’s why we never have a complete loss of immune protection.” In view of this, the Bonn expert is relaxed about future mutations. There is no reason to fear that every new variant will require tougher measures or that it would be dangerous for all of us. Because it won’t be a completely new virus.
Ulf Dittmer, Director of the Institute for Virology at the University Hospital Essen, made a similar statement when asked: In view of the changes in the virus, he does not expect a major threat from new variants. “Certainly they can possibly trigger new waves of infection again. But no big waves with seriously ill people and many deaths, ”explained Dittmer. “This prevents the now very broad immunity in the population.”
Regarding the current variant BA 2.75, the virologist found: BA 2.75 has some additional changes in the spike protein. It could well trigger a new wave of infections. So far, however, it has not yet caught on in Germany, although it has appeared sporadically some time ago.
The expert does not see a strong autumn wave. “This prevents broad immunity after the strong summer wave,” explained Dittmer. “After Christmas, however, there could be a new wave of infections.”
Other experts currently see the situation as more precarious. Because the omicron variants are very contagious. In addition, BA.4 and BA.5 can escape the immune system even better than their predecessors. This means that anyone who was infected with BA.1 or BA.2 at the beginning of the year can now become infected again.
The virologist Christian Drosten expects a “strong wave of incidence” of corona infections “before December”. That said the Charité expert of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. Similarly, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach never tires of warning. The politician wrote on Twitter: “An autumn wave is becoming more and more likely.” The Germany-wide incidences indicate this – even if the number of unreported cases has long been very high here. Because there is often a lack of PCR confirmations for infections so that they can be included in the official figures. For virologist Weber it is clear that an autumn wave has started all over Germany – its rise is less steep than that in Munich. In this respect, there is already a Wiesn wave here. !function(){var t=window.addEventListener?”addEventListener”:”attachEvent”;(0,window[t])(“attachEvent”==t?”onmessage”:”message”,function(t){if (“string”==typeof t.data
So much for the view of Germany. But what is happening around the world when it comes to Corona? Because Omikron has made it clear how closely we are all connected to one another. It quickly became the dominant variant in most countries.
Omicron dynamics are emerging around the world right now. The Charité immunologist Leif-Erik Sander described the findings of a Chinese preprint study on this as “very important and somewhat worrying data”. Virologist Kekulé agreed and explained in the current podcast ( episode 325 ) what exactly is worrying: “Namely: There is a worldwide, as we say, convergent evolution. And that means that viruses all over the world learn exactly the same tricks independently of one another.” Evolution is thus heading towards a common universal type. This uses a “corner” “where most people no longer have the right antibodies”. In other words, these omicron variants are getting better and better at evading the human immune response – so-called immune escape.
Former Harvard professor Eric Feigl-Ding finds this development of immune escape variants, which can be observed worldwide, “scary”. Feigl-Ding drew a “winter road map” of the Corona variants, a kind of winter timetable. It leads to: BQ.1.1.
This variant, which escapes our immune system particularly well, seems to be spreading worldwide. Experts have been warning of BQ.1.1, a subline of BA.5, for several weeks. Cambridge scientist Cornelius Römer even explains on Twitter that this is probably the variant that will bring us the next wave. It’s becoming “pretty clear that BQ.1.1 will trigger a wave of variants in Europe and North America before the end of November.”
“Here is what lies in our future. The variants of Omikron are exploding,” Feigl-Ding wrote about the winter timetable. And worst of all, many of their mutations converged into very unique combinations of mutations that are likely to evade immunity. “Mutations from many different branches don’t usually converge unless there’s a good reason.” Escaping the immune system is such a.
Following on from this topic, the Swiss virologist Isabella Eckerle shared a tweet with the words: “It looks like a whole swarm of Sars-CoV-2 is ready for the winter season.” At the same time, the expert complains that both the monitoring and research funding will also be cut. Only the coming weeks will tell whether several sub-lines will circulate together this winter or whether a new variant will assert itself as the clear winner. In any case, Römer is in favor of developing vaccines for several subtypes now and not waiting to see whether and which one will prevail.
The binoculars therefore remain directed in all directions. Whatever it will discover, one thing is clear: many people have some level of immunity to Sars-CoV-2 and different regions of the spike protein. With this pointed structure, the virus opens its way into human cells. This will therefore not change completely. Otherwise the key will no longer fit in the lock.
