Wheeler: Don’t make Christmas a ‘great start’ for Omicron | free press

BERLIN (dpa) – In light of the spread of the omicron coronavirus, the head of the Robert Koch Institute, Lothar Wheeler, has called for the celebration of Christmas only in the smallest circle.

“We all want to spend the holidays with family and friends, but we all have to work together to ensure that Christmas does not become a head start for Omicron,” Wheeler said Thursday in Berlin.

He urged citizens to spend the holidays “urgently” so that “it is not a holiday for the virus.” “Just spend this time with your smallest and closest circle of friends and family.” When interviewing people from risk groups, he recommended that tests be carried out even if the vaccination was complete.

Hospital relief

Now it’s a matter of preventing the infection as generally as possible, so that Omikron doesn’t spread that fast and the handles will be cleared before the number of cases likely increases again. So far, Wheeler said, a few hundred cases have been referred with the variant in the reporting system.

At the moment, according to his information, it is not yet possible to assess how effective vaccination is in protecting against severe disease and whether Omikron causes less or more disease. Due to the fact that it is highly contagious, one has to reckon with a large number of intense training sessions “only for sports reasons”. Regarding the effect of vaccination, Wheeler said, “Vaccination is always better than no vaccination, that is quite clear.” However, preliminary studies indicated that the two vaccinations did not protect against Omikron either. With booster vaccination, protection can be greatly increased again.