Should the local population be infested with around 30,000 new infections every day? How Switzerland best meets the Omikron wave and how useful it would be to lift the quarantine – infectiologist Manuel Battegay classifies.
SRF News: Is what you are now observing this much-cited contamination?
Manuel Battegay: A large part of the population is vaccinated, some even boosted. So it’s not just a contamination. But of course: The virus is now circulating very strongly and large parts of the population will encounter the virus and in some cases will also be infected.
Could the omicron wave have been prevented?
No. But the question is also: does it make sense? Because vaccinated, boosted, we will encounter this virus. We would have done the same at Delta. The time span would have been different. Now a very large number of people are infected in a very short time, and too many people are not sufficiently protected by vaccinations or boosters.
So a little head down and through.
You can’t say that. We have been preparing for vaccinations for months. But the burden will definitely remain extremely high. English data show that Omikron now mainly circulates in younger people and not yet, or not yet strongly, in those over 60. That means: We do not yet know whether there will be additional stress – including the hospitals.
There is currently much discussion about shortening the quarantine. Would that make sense?
Clearly. The virus is circulating and we cannot stop it by quarantining it for ten days. In addition, by the time a person tests positive, some of the transmissions have already happened. We cannot prevent that through a quarantine either.
If the cases decrease significantly, we should give up the quarantine entirely.
Of course, if we shorten this to five days, more people will become infected. But you can install fuses there – for example, tests in the event of complaints. I even believe that we should give up quarantine altogether if the cases decrease significantly.
Now it has always been said that quarantine is important – suddenly you may even be able to give it up completely. Why exactly?
When so many people are infected with Omicron, fortunately most of them mildly, it is important that the infected isolate themselves for ten days for the time being.
We have to see that we reduce the chains of infection in a different way. For example through 2G plus.
But it is not realistic for the whole area to go into quarantine, and with a high level of vaccination it does not make sense either. We have to see that we reduce the chains of infection in a different way. For example with 2G plus, with even stricter measures.
Quarantine is one thing – isolation is another. So you can’t mix that up.
Exactly. An infected person should still make sure that he does not infect others. If you live in the same household, you should test yourself. And then you can protect yourself with a test after five days. Then there remains a residual risk, but otherwise we have so many people in quarantine that the functioning of society is called into question.
One has the impression that a paradigm shift is taking place here.
I think so too – on the one hand because of Omikron, on the other hand because of the vaccination. But we mustn’t throw everything overboard now. We now have to look very, very carefully that not too many infections happen at the same time. The virus is now circulating to an extent where we can at best dampen it.
The interview was conducted by Beat Soltermann.