Third Corona wave has already started in Germany

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More than 14,000 new infections were reported in Germany on Thursday. RKI President Lothar Wieler expressed “great concern” about the situation.

A year after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a pandemic, the Robert Koch Institute believes the third wave of Corona has begun in Germany.

“We have very clear signs of this: The third wave has already started in Germany,” RKI President Lothar Wieler said in an interview with the UN Association of Journalists (ACANU) in Geneva. “I am very concerned.”

The strict use of protective measures, such as wearing a mask and keeping a distance, continues to be urgently needed despite vaccinations, he said.

The vaccination campaign is a race against the mutating virus, he said. But the finish line is in sight, he said: if there are no interruptions due to production stoppages or other reasons, 80 percent of the population could be immune to the virus by fall.

“If that’s the case, all measures can be lifted,” Wieler said. He expects that after the first rounds of vaccination, boosters will be needed – at what intervals is unclear so far, he said.

The WHO had declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic on March 11, 2020. At that time, 118,000 infections had been reported worldwide and just under 4,300 people had died following infection. One year later, WHO statistics show there are nearly 120 million reported infections worldwide and just over 2.6 million deaths.

The WHO’s biggest concern is the uneven distribution of vaccines. If the virus spreads unchecked in some regions of the world, it could mutate and the variants could again become a threat to the entire world, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus constantly warns.

Because rich countries have made direct deals with vaccine companies, fewer doses are available on the market for the Covax solidarity vaccination initiative.

At the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva on Wednesday, a demand by more than 100 countries to temporarily suspend patents on Corona vaccines to boost production failed in its eighth attempt. Wealthy countries and the pharmaceutical industry say all production capacity is already being used through licensing agreements. The Indian ambassador disagreed. However, wealthy countries continued to block the move, and the next talks will be held in mid-April.