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“Omicron train will rush through”

“The Omicron train is on track. And it will rush through with or without a lockdown,” said Günter Weiss, the renowned infectiologist and director of the Innsbruck University Clinic for Internal Medicine. There is an infestation of the population in progress that “cannot be stopped”.

This scenario is currently taking place across Europe, according to Weiss, who is also a member of the Ministry of Health’s advisory board. The infection with the much milder but more contagious omicron variant is a “dynamic process” that will probably peak in about two weeks and then flatten out again. You can no longer influence this significantly: “It will be like this whether you want it or not,” says Weiss.

  • ZIB 1: 360,000 people in quarantine

According to Weiss, however, Omikron is also opening up a real chance of a return to normality. As a result of the epidemic, combined with the vaccination, there will be “high immunity in the population” and it will probably also be possible to get out of the “pandemic,” said Weiss. “Hopefully we will move from a pandemic to an epidemiological situation in which we will be confronted with the virus again in the cold season,” Weiss saw a scenario similar to other viruses that we have learned to live with.

“With the handbrake on”

It is crucial that the epidemic can be controlled “with the handbrake on” and that the hospitals can be protected from being overloaded, says Weiss. According to the current status and based on the experience of other countries, the situation is challenging but manageable.

Weiss criticizes the current test strategy. This is excessive and untargeted. The virologist Elisabeth Puchhammer-Stöckl had previously questioned the broad testing. Major General Thomas Starlinger, co-chairman of the Gecko Corona expert committee advising the government, also promised on Thursday that testing would be forced to set priorities and also to use rapid antigen tests again. At the moment, the PCR school tests outside of Vienna are getting completely out of hand.

Against this background, Upper Austria’s Deputy Governor. Christine Haberlander (VP) sent a letter directly to Minister of Health Wolfgang Mückstein (Greens): Haberlander hopes that in future there will be free antigen tests for self-use in pharmacies (“living room tests”), which can also be used as proof of 3G at work be acknowledged.

Vaccination obligation: law “promptly”

Yesterday, the coalition consulted with experts on the major government project on compulsory vaccination until the evening hours. A revised draft law should be available “soon”, according to coalition circles. The plan was for the law to be discussed in Parliament’s health committee on Monday and passed in plenary on Thursday.

How the vaccination works

A large US study, in which the data from 1.2 million immunized adults was evaluated by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention from December 2020 to October 2021, now proves the high effectiveness of the Covid 19 vaccination. Accordingly, the vaccination protects very well against infections with the corona virus and extremely well against serious illnesses.

Of the 1.2 million vaccinated, 2,246 (that’s 0.18 percent) still contracted Covid-19. 189 patients had a severe course of the disease with acute respiratory failure or admission to an intensive care unit. That was only 0.015 percent of all vaccinated. 36 people died, that is 0.003 percent of those immunized. All people who had a severe course of the disease in this study were among the risk patients (old age, cancer therapy, heart disease, diabetes, chronic lung disease, etc.).

Source: Nachrichten

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