Leading experts and advisors from different governments worldwide have been warning for weeks that the coronavirus pandemic is not over. There is still a long way to go, despite vaccination, and the risk of a new wave is already on the horizon.
WORLD (Agencies) – One of those who already dare to give dates of a worsening of the situation is the leading virologist in Germany, Christian Drosten. The German expert warned that the pandemic might become “drastically more difficult” in the coming weeks, specifically a few days after Easter.
As three months ago
Drosten, director of virology at La Charité in Berlin and one of the most renowned European experts, said in the podcast that he regularly participates that shortly after Easter, we will have a situation like the one experienced after Christmas.
“This view is not the fantasy of individual experts, but is the official view of what awaits us in the coming weeks,” he said. He also added that the situation might become “drastically more difficult” in a matter of days in the first half of April.
Importance of the vaccine
Specifically, Drosten points to the population aged 50 and over who have not yet been vaccinated as that part of the population that may suffer the worst effects of this fourth wave if it ultimately occurs as he fears.
This new wave will be especially the English variant that will cause the great majority of infections and hospitalizations this spring.
In the U.S.
Michael T. Osterholm, Joe Biden’s epidemiological advisor, expressed himself in the same terms as Drosten and predicted a fourth wave of large-scale coronavirus.
When it would hit
It would arrive in the days after Easter and lead by the British variant, which is more contagious and has become dominant in many European and American countries.
In an interview with MPR News, Osterholm explained that this variant “is causing more severe disease, including an increase in deaths and hospitalizations.”
Greater strength
The U.S. expert has qualified that this new wave will be felt with a greater or lesser force depending on the vaccination rate in each country.
He added that the percentages, even in the most advanced countries in terms of the number of doses inoculated, are still far from optimal to begin to halt these new waves.
