Virologist Von Laer also recommends wearing a mask in summer

Virologist Dorothy von Laer from the University of Innsbruck wore the masks last night at ZIB2: “I can only recommend that you wear these masks in the summer – especially when you are with vulnerable people – to protect these people, without regard. Masks will certainly be the first to come back as numbers rise. “.

At the same time, you should start with booster vaccinations to fill in vaccination gaps. The best protection is those who have been vaccinated and recovered. The vaccination protection variant BA1 is not very high, and BA2 probably has better protection, so von Laer. One problem is that there is not enough overview of the infection process due to low testing activity.

“We don’t have at all an overview of the size of the immunity gap in Austria. We don’t have a representative study on the contamination of the Austrian population. We don’t even know if we have a problem at all or whether 99 percent of people, as in England, have it.” Already have antibodies and a certain amount of protection against severe cycles,” says von Laer.

Von Laer agrees with Reich’s recommendation that people over 65, exposed, and those with chronic diseases should be vaccinated for the fourth time. The expert is cautiously optimistic about falls: She said a new vaccine appears to produce better antibodies against escape variants, given the first data provided by the moderna vaccine manufacturer on the effectiveness of the modified CoV vaccine.

However, von Laer also believes that it is possible that new variants will appear in the fall, with the exception of the Omicron – “where we will begin again.” For now, she said, Omicron appears to dominate the world.