The German virologist emphasizes that masks, for example on the train, continue to make sense for vulnerable people. Drosten describes the situation in China as “unpredictable”.
The head virologist of the Berlin Charité, Christian Drosten, believes that the use of masks in the current phase of the corona pandemic is no longer as effective as it used to be. “The mask will no longer be as efficient,” Drosten said Thursday on Norddeutscher Rundfunk’s (NDR) “Coronavirus Update” podcast. As masks are only used on a few occasions, they hardly play a role in controlling the overall transmission of the corona virus.
Drosten said the reason there is currently relative calm in the corona situation is the high level of immunity in the population. “It’s the biggest contributor to containment.” Despite that assessment, Drosten did not advocate lifting the mask requirement on trains. This is still useful for protecting so-called vulnerable groups. People in this group, particularly at risk of illness caused by the corona virus, would be better protected if not only they, but their counterparts as well, wore a mask.
Danger from China? “I’ll see you in a few weeks”
So it’s “good social thinking” to keep the mask requirement on trains, Drosten said. The virologist also spoke out against the lifting of all political guidelines. If things get tough again, it makes sense to have measures available.
Drosten sees “a certain fundamental danger” in the explosive spread of the corona virus in China. There is currently no evidence that the corona virus in China is changing in ways that bypass human immunity. However, due to the wide spread, it is currently having a chance to come up with new solutions to bypass human immunity. The situation is therefore “unpredictable”. Drosten said: “We’ll see in a few weeks if anything new has come out.”
Is the pandemic over? A misunderstanding”
Drosten also called his much-noted statement about the end of the pandemic in late 2022 a misunderstanding. In the interview at the time, he actually said something different from what was received by part of the public, described the Charité professor in the podcast “Coronavirus Update” on NDR-Info. “What I said is: I hope that the next wave of winter will be more of an endemic wave (…) and that the pandemic will end.” The end of the pandemic cannot be announced in advance, you can only look at it later – that is, after this wave.
On reading some media and politicians, after which he declared the end of the pandemic, he said: “I think everyone who has heard me communicate so far knows that I don’t actually say these research things in public.” He can only say what he expects: “This we will say shortly in a few months: in hindsight, this was the first endemic wave of this virus and that means the pandemic is over.”
popular podcast
Shortly before the turn of the year, quotes from a “Tagesspiegel” interview with Drosten also led to political calls for more easing. The newspaper quoted him as saying in late December: “We are facing the first endemic wave of Sars-CoV-2 this winter and, in my opinion, the pandemic is over.” He added: This means that after this winter there will be such widespread and resilient population immunity “that the virus will hardly make it through the summer”.
At the end of March, Drosten and Frankfurt-based virologist Sandra Ciesek withdrew as regular conversation partners from the Corona podcast. However, a return to the microphone depending on the situation has not been ruled out. In recent months, several special episodes with other guests have appeared on the series. According to the broadcaster, the podcast was accessed almost 146 million times by the end of December 2022.
(APA/AFP/dpa)