The virologist Andreas Bergthaler from the Austrian Academy of Sciences declared on the ORF program Zib2 about a possible infection: “Basically, it is about a political goal that needs to be communicated. I think it’s not yet communicated in such a way that we can search it. Scientifically, there are two different perspectives: The one that Omikron sees as an opportunity to infect the entire population in a natural vaccination and thus obtain a high level of immunity. The other view is that we have a lot of evidence that Omikron is not as mild as we would like it to be. This affects hospitalization rates, it affects more children and it also affects open questions about Long Covid. “
As far as schools are concerned, according to Bergthaler, there is broad consensus that schools should be kept open as long as possible. At the same time, stringent measures are now needed to protect children and young people.
Because of the so-called serial infection interval from Omikron, one will also have to consider whether the PCR test is valid for another 48 hours, because the virus can possibly be transmitted further beforehand.
“I think we need a pragmatic set of measures of different actions in order to counter Omikron as much as possible. For example, testing, where antigen tests are better than no tests at all, and booster vaccinations.” People with the third vaccination are also better protected against hospital stays at Omikron, said Bergthaler. And it’s about concepts in school and more stringent home office rules.
“From my personal point of view, further measures are needed that are not to be equated with a further lockdown, but to look into areas where vulnerable people are affected in order to flatten this wave as well as possible,” said Bergthaler.