Worries about the unexpected impact of the wave of infection: Drosten warns of dangerous background effects

Wednesday, 22.04.2020, 18:22

According to RKI estimates, every person infected with the coronavirus in Germany currently only infects one other person on average. This is a success, believes virologist Christian Drosten. However, he warns against dangerous background effects that are not reflected in the figures - and that could cause an unexpected wave of infections.

According to current estimates, the reproduction value of the virus in Germany is just under 1, and virologist Christian Drosten from the Charité hospital in Berlin rates the figure very positively. The virologist therefore considers the relaxation of measures to be obvious, but it also causes him concern, as he tells in the NDR podcast "Das Coronavirus-Update".

"Of course, politics does not assume that the R value will rise above 1 again," says Drosten. "But the question you always have to ask yourself is: Can we have missed something? If so, what could it be?"

Specifically, Drosten means that despite all the successes, the virus continues to spread, so to speak, "under the cover of measures" - and unnoticed. According to Drosten, two diffusion effects will occur here: local diffusion and age-related diffusion.

Local diffusion

Especially at the beginning of the pandemic, local virus hotspots such as the district of Heinsberg have formed in Germany. The heterogeneous concentration of cases was frozen, so to speak, by means of rapid contact minimization. As a result, on the one hand, places affected by the virus appeared strongly on the map and, on the other hand, places hardly affected by the virus.

Even now the conspicuous local outgrowths of the initial introduction can still be seen. However, what Drosten says is not yet to be found in the figures are the cases that have been carried over into other areas in the background. For example, by the fact that visits or trips were nevertheless made or certain meetings were held under exceptional circumstances.

Age-related diffusion

At the beginning of the pandemic, the virus was also transmitted particularly by the young and middle-aged population. Elderly people were initially only slightly affected.

However, Drosten sees a "slow proliferation over time into older age groups, which we have not yet noticed in detail. He fears that chains of infection are already running among the elderly. Reasons for this could be that one has met with acquaintances or received visits from grandchildren.

"Wave of infection you never expected"

At present, such excesses of these background effects are not yet reflected in the figures. But: "If the reproduction value should rise above 1 again, the epidemic activity will suddenly start again in a disproportionate way because of the local distribution", Drosten states his fears.

He is worried that "the people who will then appear as newly infected people everywhere in Germany will no longer be the 35-year-olds, but suddenly the 70-year-old and his social contacts, who are perhaps also in this age group.

"All of a sudden you have a wave of infection within a month that you didn't expect," explains the virologist. Also with regard to intensive care units in hospitals, such an effect could lead to a burden "in a way that is not expected at the moment".

"I expect it to happen"

The virologist makes it clear that for him such a development is not speculation: "These are diffusion effects that are almost inevitable. I expect it to happen - and that we will suddenly have to reassess our old experiences in Germany and perhaps have no more time for this reassessment".

Translated and reblogged Version - Original here