The impacts are getting closer: almost everyone knows someone who recently tested positive for the corona virus.
Instagram stories, Twitter homepages and Whatsapp messages are full of photos of positive rapid tests.
A year ago, test results like this would have caused horror in many people, but now many of those who aren’t hit too hard are feeling a bit jittery and relieved: It just happened, but this damn pandemic will be over in two weeks me at least finally over!
Sebastian Eder
Editor in the society department at FAZ.NET.
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And won't it catch everyone soon anyway?
After all, the World Health Organization recently warned that in two months more than half of the people in Europe could have been infected with omicron.
So is it still worthwhile for people outside vulnerable groups to continue torturing the psyche with isolation and fear?
And are the chances of a very mild course thanks to the slightly less dangerous omicron variant - but above all thanks to the three vaccinations that many Germans have already received - currently not better than ever?
Even if you would like to convince yourself of all this: In reality, it is a very bad time to be infected with the corona virus. Even if the personal risk of a serious illness is low on paper, it can still get you - and the next few weeks could be chaotic in the hospitals. After two years of the pandemic, many clinic employees are at the end of their strength, quite a few have resigned, and despite the relaxed quarantine rules, a significant part of the staff will soon be absent due to corona diseases or contacts. And because there are still far too many unvaccinated people in Germany, these decimated teams will probably have to take care of thousands of seriously ill Covid patients again.
Although omicron rarely leads to severe courses, even a small percentage with very high incidences will lead to a high absolute number of patients. You can also contribute to this if you don't end up in the hospital yourself: If you are boosted and infected, which is unfortunately not an absolute exception with Omikron, you can infect other people who have a higher risk of a severe course. After two years of the pandemic, you may not like to hear that anymore, but it still remains true.
Promising drugs
And there are other reasons why it is worth at least delaying the point in time when an infection occurs: This year, promising drugs are coming onto the market that can prevent or alleviate serious Covid diseases. Some of these medicines have already been approved, but it will take some time before they reach hospitals across the board. According to the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, the corona drug Paxlovid reduces the risk of hospitalization or death in high-risk patients by almost 90 percent. Pfizer and Biontech have also already started producing a version of the vaccine specifically designed to protect against the omicron variant - the vaccine could be delivered in March.
Until then, one should not rely too much on the famous "mild course". The virologist Christian Drosten recently explained in the NDR podcast that, by definition, all illnesses that do not lead patients to the hospital are considered mild: “This mild course is where you might think when you’re at home: Well, yes , so that's no longer harmless. Well, now I'm already noticing that my lungs aren't working as they should, and it's getting harder to breathe. And if it gets even harder now, I'll have to go to the hospital."
Lying sick in bed at home and wondering whether your lungs are already working so poorly that you have to go to the hospital, or whether you'd rather wait a little while panting, may be "mild" from a medical point of view, but it's definitely not pleasant. Added to this is the fear of long-Covid. As an acquaintance recently put it, whose family had been struggling with the infection for weeks despite booster vaccinations: "I still can't recommend it."
The bad news for his family is that if you contract the corona virus after three vaccinations, it does not mean that you can never be infected with Sars-CoV-2 again. The immunity can be boosted a little by the infection, but it can also be that the body eradicates the virus so quickly that the immune system learns nothing at all - especially if you get infected shortly after a vaccination. This is more true for those affected who hardly have any symptoms.
But even with symptoms there is no certainty: Just like after a vaccination, the antibody level drops again in the weeks and months after an illness.
The difference is that once infected, it is much harder to predict how long immunity will last.
Vaccines can be precisely dosed, but the viral load that one is exposed to when contagious cannot.
It may be that you get so little viral load that you test positive, but are then only protected from another infection for a very short time - which can then hit you harder than the first infection.
So the bitter truth is: Even if you get infected with Omikron now - the pandemic is not over for you afterwards.