Intensive care physicians expect the pandemic to end after the winter

Intensive care physician Christian Karagiannidis assumes that the corona pandemic will end after this winter. "I firmly expect that the pandemic will now increasingly expire," said the member of the Federal Government's Corona Expert Council to the "RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland". Surely one or the other small wave will follow. "But we notice that the immunity level of the population is solid and we have significantly fewer Covid patients in the intensive care units."

Karagiannidis is also President of the German Society for Internal Intensive Care Medicine and Emergency Medicine. He thinks it is unlikely that a dangerous corona variant will spread again in Germany. The defense against corona viruses apparently works very well, he said with regard to the immunity through antibodies and T cells. “We see that the number of serious illnesses is decreasing more and more. I don't think we'll see a setback again."

Karagiannidis sees the current wave of respiratory illnesses at their peak. "We currently know that the very strong wave of infections has just peaked and hopefully the number of infections will drop in the coming days," he said. There are already signs of a slight decline in respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections and other infectious diseases.

Nevertheless, Karagiannidis warned that there could be bottlenecks in clinics on New Year's Eve and New Year - but regionally and not nationwide. In view of the tense situation in the hospitals, he called on people to hold back on firecrackers on New Year's Eve or to do without them altogether.

A little over a week ago, Karagiannidis spoke of the historical dimensions of sickness among the population. "I've never experienced anything like it," he told the Rheinische Post. In many regions there are almost no more free intensive care beds. The main problem is no longer corona infections, but “very wide-ranging clinical pictures”.