Corona also makes risk assessment difficult for us in the form of Omikron.
In Britain, after initial, limited evaluations, hope for “milder progressions” has been curbed insofar as the seriously ill Omicron patients are no better off than those from previous waves.
On the other hand, it is becoming apparent that a smaller proportion of those infected actually become so seriously ill that they have to be treated (longer) in hospital.
That is good news - but no cause for relief.
Because Omikron is so much more contagious, the group of infected people will probably become so large that the hospitals will reach their limits even if the proportion of mild courses increases.
Not to mention the problems that bloom the country even when too many people are mildly ill or in quarantine at the same time;
the keyword is “critical infrastructure”.
Speed limit for politics?
Bad advice
The risk assessment also remains complicated when it comes to the measures.
They all have social side effects that are still difficult to calculate today.
This applies even more to the compulsory vaccination, to which German politics, based on a conscientious decision and thorough examination, has meanwhile established itself.
At least the German Ethics Council agrees on this: the expectations of a “general vaccination obligation” are exaggerated.
The four members of the panel, who did not want to endorse the recommendation of the divided majority of the council, point to the many uncertainties that the legislature would have to ignore.
They did not want to legitimize a decision that had been made for a long time and are demanding a “speed limit for political decisions”.
Admittedly, this is dubious advice in the pandemic.
Politicians do not have the luxury of waiting until the last doubts have been removed; they have to act.
But that doesn't mean that science has to make itself wider than it can be just so that politics can hide behind it.