‘The situation before the virus is becoming precarious’ – German virologist Drosten on the corona situation North Korea attacks South Korean president Yoon

Virus is stuck in a dead end

This year there have already been four corona waves that appeared and disappeared in quick succession. They were triggered by small influencing factors such as weather or temperature changes. For Drosten, this is a sign that Corona is developing from pandemic to endemic. So not a global, but only a local phenomenon. This is also evident from a drastic drop in the R-value – and this without masks, distance rules and quarantine.

Drosten also says that the virus has reached a kind of dead end: since this year it has only mutated within the omicron variant. It cannot just go back to a Delta-like variant. “It’s kind of stuck and just adjusting at the moment – ​​with it […] will probably also have to sacrifice some of its virulence in the near future.”

problem child China

According to Drosten, a new variant should come from the bottom of the family tree. Another possibility would be that there would be a “revolution” somewhere through renewed mass diffusion. He sees China primarily as a place for such a scenario.

“Immunity is distributed fairly homogeneously worldwide, in industrialized countries due to vaccination-based infection, in poorer countries even due to multiple infections of the population,” says Drosten. However, this is not the case in China, where there are still gaps in vaccination, especially among the elderly population.

But it is also possible that nothing happens and the virus stays in its corner. Then, like the flu, it would migrate endemic between hemispheres in winter and become “quite tame.”

Overall, Crisis was handled well

All in all, the virologist is satisfied with the approach to the crisis. Of course, politics made the wrong decision here, and science published errors. But he can hardly think of anything where gross wrong decisions have been made.

However, he also complains about the lack of inclusion of clinical research: “Clinical research can only take place in university clinics. In Germany, however, half of the research money is invested in the major research institutions before it can even reach a university. They don’t have hospital beds.”

Drosten is also disturbed by the voices that criticize the measures afterwards. You should compare our omicron with the one from Hong Kong. There, the population was not really protected by measures in the first omicron wave; many people died as a result. It’s a classic prevention paradox: you fear a lot, you act, it actually happens less precisely because you acted.

No new pandemic anytime soon

Drosten is confident that, from a global perspective, we will be well prepared for the next major pandemic – provided we continue to focus on research funding and development cooperation. And which pathogen does the virologist see as a pandemic candidate? Influenza H2N2, a flu virus that went around the world as early as the 1950s. However, he does not expect another such pandemic to break out in the near future.

But Drosten also fears that political blockades will arise again after the Corona period. For example, his institute had been working together with a research institute in Moscow for years, but that is of course no longer the case. Given the political situation, cooperation with China is also likely to become more difficult. (cpf)