In a new position paper, a group of experts led by physician Thomas Voshaar calls for an end to government corona measures. The virus no longer poses a threat to the population and health system. Only risk groups still need protection. An epidemiologist considers this dangerous.

Due to the current high number of corona infections in Germany, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach tirelessly warns of a catastrophic corona wave in autumn. Due to the current developments, a group of experts led by physicians Thomas Voshaar and Matthias Schrappe and medical statistician Gerd Antes have issued a new position paper calling for government measures to stop controlling the pandemic.

“A pandemic caused by respiratory viruses cannot be controlled precisely by the state by controlling and monitoring social contacts,” says the paper published last Thursday. This fails due to the highly efficient spread of the virus via the breathing air and the rapid variability of the virus. The infection process is therefore complex and sometimes chaotic, it says.

According to the experts, only typical situations could be defined in which the risk of infection is particularly high (small rooms, many people, little air exchange, long stay) or extremely low – such as when staying outdoors.

The population also suffers from a fatigue effect, explain Voshaar and colleagues: from lockdown to lockdown, constantly changing scenarios and warnings would have had the opposite effect. In addition, the lockdown measures would not have worked. According to Voshaar and his colleagues, this was shown by several studies carried out in Europe and the USA. The state should therefore do better to encourage citizens to take responsibility for their own actions instead of intervening with such measures.

Epidemiologist Timo Ulrichs from Berlin considers it “frivolous” to rate a lockdown as unsuitable and to rule it out for the next pandemic. Although it is sometimes difficult to assess the effect of a lockdown in various pandemic situations and it is also important to see the collateral damage of such a measure, it can certainly be justified as a “radical measure in an emergency”, he said when asked by FOCUS on-line.

At the same time, the group of experts around Antes, Voshaar and Schrappe recognizes that not all government measures have been without effect. For example, the rapid availability of vaccines undisputedly shows good protection against hospitalization and death in the risk group over 60 years of age. The expert group also rates the broad immunization through vaccination campaigns and repeated infections as positive. Thanks to these successes, “the current infections caused by omicron and its sub-types are much less complicated than at the beginning of the pandemic,” according to the expert group.

Timo Ulrichs also agrees. “This should also be clearly emphasized despite all justified criticism,” said the epidemiologist.

The group of experts also sees the government measures positively with regard to masks. According to the doctors, the added value of the masks is particularly evident in clinics, old people’s homes and similar facilities: “Masks have proven their usefulness, especially in reducing deaths: They reduce the concentration of inhaled viruses and thus give the immune system reaction time.”

Are we still fighting Corona? No, say the experts around Voshaar. The clinical picture, like the virus itself, would have changed. Omicron cases are “medically not comparable” to their predecessors. “Covid as a serious and life-threatening disease with pneumonia is practically no longer seen in hospitals,” they claim in their position paper. Omicron, on the other hand, can be treated much better.

However, Ulrichs is rather critical of these statements: “We still have to fight the pandemic, because we have not reached the endemic phase either in Germany or worldwide,” he told FOCUS online. Angela Merkel’s sentence applies here: “Only when everyone is safe, so are we”. The fair distribution of vaccines is just as important worldwide as possible measures such as wearing a mask indoors to further combat the pandemic.

The extent to which Omikron makes you ill depends on the variant in question and has not yet been conclusively clarified.

Thomas Voshaar himself supported the thesis that Covid is not dangerous in itself, even during an interview with “WDR”: According to the chief physician of the Bethanien Hospital, Covid diseases have not been seen in the hospitals for months. In his opinion, the pandemic, which poses great threats to people, serious illnesses and many deaths, is over.

The authors conclude that one can rely on the effect of a “modified virus” and the learning effect of our immune system. What exactly is meant by the effect of a modified virus initially remained unclear. In the WDR, however, Voshaar reinforced his thesis of a learning effect in the immune system through repeated infections and the resulting immunization: “Natural infection is the super vaccination.”

The group of experts is also calling for an end to “unprofessional” debates about compulsory vaccination, such as those recently inglorious on the Federal Ministry of Health’s Twitter account. The physicians believe that the exclusion of unvaccinated people must also come to an end: trust in the state and science is “recognisably burdened” as a result. The “rigid, unscientific attitude of the BMG” and the resulting discussion about side effects disturb the trust in the vaccines, according to the statement.

Although they recognize the effectiveness of the vaccines, especially in the over 60-year-olds, according to the group of experts, children, adolescents and young adults in particular should be excluded from the vaccination recommendation: “If you take a severe course and deaths as target criteria, then effectiveness cannot be proven ,” it says in the position paper.

Ulrichs also agrees: “Yes, of course, that is evident from the numbers,” he told FOCUS online. Nevertheless, a nationwide vaccination would have the goal of creating basic immunity in the population rather than vaccinating risk groups. It is also important not to forget that the vaccination also greatly reduces the risk of long-Covid in younger people, says Ulrichs.

The Secretary General of the German Society for Immunology, Carsten Watzl, also considers additional booster vaccinations to be advisable, especially for the new vaccines adapted to Omicron: “The current vaccine acts as a refresher and with the fourth vaccination restores the protection that one needs shortly after the third vaccination,” says the Dortmund professor. The first study data would already show that the Omicron vaccines result in a better immune system response.

While the number of cases is currently skyrocketing again, a certain carelessness is spreading among the population. And the group of experts around Voshaar, Schrappe and Antes also finds: “From an epidemiological and medical perspective, the virus is no longer a threat to the health system and the population according to the current state of affairs.” According to the authors’ thesis, the decisive factor is no longer the number of infections and that Risk of infection, as well as the incidences and number of cases. According to the position paper, all of these factors are no longer relevant if the pandemic becomes endemic. According to the doctors, the summer flu is currently the much bigger problem.

Ulrichs vehemently contradicts these statements. A summer flu is not comparable to Corona and the fact that 150 to 200 people die of Corona every day does not allow the claim that there is no longer a danger to the population. The healthcare system is not yet on the safe side either: “It may very well be that we will reach the capacity limits of the intensive care and normal wards again if the pandemic wave builds up on the summer wave in autumn – even if the courses are proportionately less severe .”

In the eyes of the experts around Voshaar, the greatest weapon at the moment is a “well-functioning immune system”. Therefore, according to the claim, it would be responsible to allow infections and instead only protect vulnerable groups. Voshaar also confirmed this in the WDR interview: “The protection of vulnerable groups was correct and is still important, but you have to reassess it. Diabetics, people with high blood pressure or respiratory diseases are no longer affected. Today you have to judge very individually who is vulnerable,” explained the pneumologist.

However, DGI General Secretary Watzl does not believe in continuing without any measures: “It is always about avoiding too many illnesses that cause problems in important areas, and also reducing the risk of vulnerable groups becoming infected,” said Watzl. The immunologist emphasized that politicians must prepare a certain catalog of measures for the winter. “You won’t need a lockdown, but you will need indoor masks and workplace rules to limit over-infection.”

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The group of experts around Schrappe, Antes and Voshaar now considers measures such as quarantine to be “pointless and therefore no longer necessary”. Instead, there should always be sufficient vaccines that are adapted to the virus – similar to the influenza viruses. Overall, the group of experts sums up, the coming months can be viewed with optimism with regard to Covid.

Epidemiologist Ulrichs estimates that we haven’t quite gotten to that point yet. “Giving up isolation and quarantine on the grounds that it would keep too many people away from the workplace is not a valid argument,” Ulrichs said. If all measures were dropped, significantly more people would be absent due to illness – especially if the obligation to isolate was given up. So we have to be patient here.