“What really protects against Omikron is the triple vaccination,” said the scientist from the Charité in Berlin on Tuesday in the “Coronavirus Update” podcast at NDR-Info. Consequently, the strong focus on the booster vaccinations in Germany is right and important.
Looking at previous observations, according to which Omikron presumably causes milder disease processes, Drosten said: “I think you can now say that it is so.” Collected data indicated that with Omicron infections, a smaller proportion of those infected have to go to hospital.
Hospitalization risk up to 30 percent lower
Drosten referred to a study by Imperial College London, dated shortly before Christmas, according to which the risk of hospitalization with an Omicron infection was up to 30 percent lower than with the Delta variant. For people who have been vaccinated twice, the risk drops by 34 percent, and for people with a booster vaccination by as much as 63 percent. In the case of the unvaccinated who become infected with the Omikron variant, this risk drops by at least 24 percent.
In view of the “many unvaccinated people that we unfortunately have in Germany”, this is good news, said Drosten. However, courses of varying severity are inevitably to be expected and the all-clear is not appropriate. In addition, the positive effect of the booster vaccination is clearly shown here: “The gain not vaccinated to two times vaccinated is only ten percent more, but the gain from vaccinated twice to three times is then almost doubled.”
Doubling time of four days
In view of the rapid spread of Omikron, the virologist predicted that the variant would now quickly “take over the business” and will also dominate in Germany at the end of January. It is currently assumed there will be a doubling of the Omicron infection rate by around four days.
Source: Nachrichten
