Corona pandemic: Further criticism of Lauterbach’s “killer variants” prognosis

Corona pandemic: Further criticism of Lauterbach’s “killer variants” prognosis

For Federal Minister of Health Lauterbach, criticism continues to hail after his warning of a possible corona “killer variant”. According to a virologist, this leads to nothing but uncertainty among the population.

The warning from Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) of a possible “killer variant” of the corona virus continues to be criticized.

The term “killer variant” is unscientific and leads to nothing but uncertainty among the population,” said virologist Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit of “Bild”.

He currently sees little evidence of such a danger: “According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the appearance of a “killer variant” in autumn is a very unlikely scenario,” says the expert. The broad basic immunization in the population through vaccination and infection also speaks against this, “because immunity is not only based on neutralizing antibodies, but also on cellular immunity”.

The Bonn virologist Hendrik Streeck also reacted sceptically. «You cannot predict the development of variants. So instead of warning of scenarios like “killer variants”, it would be important to prepare for autumn and winter,” he said.

Lauterbach had expressed concern in the “Bild am Sonntag” about various omicron subvariants that were just developing. “It’s entirely possible that we could get a highly contagious omicron variant that’s as deadly as Delta. That would be an absolute killer option, »said the SPD politician. CDU health politician Erwin Rüddel then tweeted: “He should have actually learned from his mistakes and misjudgments.”

Source: Stern

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