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This week the number of 500,000 vaccinations will be reached – Health Minister Rudolf Anschober announced. According to a report published by oe24.at, the Health Minister contended that the situation should ease around Easter, especially among at-risk groups. What happens after that will be determined in a “clear strategy” for dealing with the virus. The work process on this is underway, said Anschober, who also announced to pay closer attention to after-effects, such as negative psychosocial effects, and to create perspectives for young people who are particularly suffering from the crisis.
Günter Weiss, director of the Department of Internal Medicine, Innsbruck Medical University, admitted the first Covid 19 patients as inpatients about a year ago and “took the leap from theory to practice.” He emphasized that no infectious disease has been so well researched so quickly. However, he said, it was still not known which patients might develop a severe course and why. People without classic risk factors and pre-existing conditions also had to receive intensive medical care, he said, and they were “completely struck down.” Weiss also pointed out that there is still no “really effective drug” against Covid-19.
“Corona, unfortunately, has become part of our lives and will remain part of our lives; we will have to live with the virus and the constant changes,” Weiss stated. He emphasized that the balancing act between necessary measures and regaining or returning to normalcy will continue.
The question of proportionality is also “the big challenge” for the medical director of the Anton Proksch Institute, which specializes in addictions, Michael Musalek. For him, the Covid 19 crisis is also a “psychosocial crisis.” Mental health problems would spread “like a viral disease.” In particular, he said, people who have had mental health problems before are now more affected. “The Covid crisis is a real fire accelerant,” the psychiatrist and psychotherapist said.
In retrospect, however, there were also many bright spots, the experts said. Elisabeth Puchhammer-Stöckl of the Medical University of Vienna emphasized the “incredible speed of knowledge transfer” last year. The sequence of the virus was published immediately, test options were developed incredibly quickly, and all this was accompanied by numerous studies.
The challenges of the coming months
She also emphasized that we have to continue to live with the virus. The challenge of the next months and years, she said, is to develop drugs and to find out “what predisposes to a severe course,” why some people have taste disorders or other intestinal symptoms. In addition, he said, it is necessary to find out what can be used to measure what is protective after vaccination and before infection. The question is what level of antibody is needed to be protected for a year, for example, the virologist said.
— source: oe24.at/picture: pixabay.com
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