The number of infections with the corona virus in Frankfurt is one of the highest in all of Germany.

"We have never had such a high incidence," says Sandra Ciesek, Director of the Institute for Medical Virology at the University Hospital Frankfurt in the NDR podcast Coronavirus Update.

But she thinks the number of unreported infections is even higher.

The President of the Robert Koch Institute, Lothar Wieler, even believes that there are twice as many infections as are known.

"The risk of becoming infected is higher than it has ever been since the pandemic began," says Ciesek.

More and more infections are appearing in their environment.

"I constantly expect that I could infect myself," says the virologist.

But she is sober about it: "I'm boosted, I've reduced my own risk of becoming seriously ill as much as possible."

Wear a mask consistently, mostly FFP2, avoid public transport, hold work meetings online as often as possible.

And give your children as much leeway as possible.

Infection despite booster vaccination 

Ciesek, who alternates with Christian Drosten every two weeks in the podcast to classify the current pandemic situation, has also been critical of the government's corona policy in the past. She calls the new quarantine rules for triple vaccinated people “difficult”. From a medical point of view, the fact that boosted contact persons of infected people no longer have to isolate themselves does not make sense. Because those who have been boosted can also become infected with omicron. According to the current study situation, the third vaccination protects against a severe course of Covid-19, but apparently not against infection. In the Delta variant, the vaccination still acted as an infection brake, which Omikron apparently overturned.

Politicians keep drawing attention to the critical infrastructure, which could be endangered by numerous cases of illness. The new quarantine rules would signal: Those who are boosted are safe, describes Ciesek. "If that were the case, you wouldn't have to worry about staff being absent. Almost everyone in the critical infrastructure is boosted. It doesn't go together."

The doctor sees the willingness of the population to accept even greater restrictions dwindling.

Those who suffer are those who cannot build up sufficient immune protection, such as immunosuppressed people and small children for whom there is still no vaccination protection.

Fortunately, a large study from southern California confirmed the assumption that omicron infection leads to fewer hospital admissions than delta infection.

But Ciesek warns against taking an infection with the variant lightly.

It is not yet possible to know whether Omikron will also trigger Long-Covid.