Science – Immunologist: Omicron infection works like a booster vaccination – Wikipedia

Berlin (dpa) – According to immunologist Carsten Watzel, superinfection with the omicron type of coronavirus significantly increases the immune protection of vaccinated people.

“An infection is like a single dose of a vaccination. For people who have been vaccinated, it works like a booster,” said Watzl of the Augsburger Allgemeine website https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/. According to the Secretary-General of the German Society of Immunology, the current high number of infections and the associated immune protection could pay off in the fall – “if a new, more dangerous variant does not appear.”

Whether compulsory vaccination is still necessary in light of this is the “$100,000 question.” If Omikron remains the dominant alternative, you will likely get through the cold season relatively well even without the compulsory vaccination. “The pessimistic scenario would be some kind of virus that makes you sick like Delta and contagious like Omicron. Then we’ll have a big problem again with the large number of unvaccinated people.” For those who have not been vaccinated, even previous infection with omicron does not provide any reasonable protection against serious illness with another virus type. “This raises the question of compulsory vaccination as a precaution. As an immunologist, I am of course always in favor of vaccination because it has been shown to be safer than infection.”

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