The number of new infections, which recently appeared somewhat stabilized, should represent a first intermediate plateau in the Covid 19 infection situation. However, that does not mean that the pandemic will virtually subside by itself, said simulation researcher Niki Popper to the APA. Even consistently high new infections without large increases “can cause great damage” in heavily loaded intensive care units. That is bitter because there is not much left to really contain it.
When you look at the vaccination rate and the number of people who are largely protected from a new infection due to a Covid-19 infection, you can see “that we are not far from being through, so to speak. We don’t have to do anything unbelievable perform, “said Popper on the basis of model calculations. If an additional 800,000 to 900,000 people in Austria were to be vaccinated, there would probably hardly be any major outbreaks that would seriously endanger the capacities of the intensive care units.
However, if the vaccination rates remain low, as they were recently, the number of new infections identified daily around 2,000 or more could go on for even longer. The current prognosis is from 300 to 350 Covid-19 intensive care patients. Since more and more younger people have to be cared for there, the occupancy times have also changed, at times the average length of stay in the hospital doubled to up to three to four weeks in the summer. Younger people have a better chance of surviving a severe infection, but often need long intensive care to do so.
A further increase in proven new infections over a longer period of time cannot of course be ruled out – with a corresponding further aggravation of the overall situation. This has to do with the still existing “potential” of infectables and what the further network dynamics will look like. One question is how the start of school will affect the coming weeks. The main issue here is whether the infections in the younger age groups spread through households to the older cohorts. To prevent this, “the PCR school tests are important,” emphasized Popper: “Ideally, the number of positive tests there should now decrease if the system is working well.” The researcher would also like the tests to be carried out further and that their continuation does not depend on the occupancy of the intensive capacities. The latter would be “incomprehensible” because the intention behind it is different from a system point of view.
Fortunately, some population groups are already seeing “saturation effects”. In the virtual population model, you can look into sub-areas and regions. For example, if there are already around 90 percent of those who have been immunized by vaccination or illness, the SARS-CoV-2 virus “runs out” there after a short time that it can still attack. The infection process then virtually comes to a standstill. “If a mini-epidemic arrives there, it subsides and has to start again,” explained Popper. That already helps in part in the current fourth wave. In contrast, the virus would have spread unchecked a year ago.
However, the researcher from the Technical University (TU) Vienna and the TU spin-off dwh estimates the proportion of people who are actually fully protected in Austria at the end of August at just under 55 percent in new model calculations. Although the rate of fully vaccinated people is almost 60 percent, depending on the vaccine, a smaller percentage is still not adequately protected. In addition, one can clearly see in the new calculations, in which the infection numbers among unvaccinated, convalescent and vaccinated people have been included since July, that only simply vaccinated people have very little protection against infection with the dominant delta variant.
Last but not least, some recovered and vaccinated people fall out of this group, who lose their protection after a certain period of time. The virtual population shows that, including the modeled unreported number, more than 70 percent have had contact with the virus or vaccination at least once and are thus beginning to build up immunity. This starting point is currently used for further forecasts and assessments of when the dynamics could decline sustainably across Austria.
Good news emerges from the model calculations with regard to the currently almost 700,000 laboratory-confirmed recoveries. Previously it was assumed that these are protected from new infections for around 180 days. If that is true, more people who have recovered should be infected at the moment. The simulations based on new data from Popper’s team therefore suggest that many people from this group are protected for more than a year. If you are now discussing 2G or 3G measures, these findings should be taken into account, even if those who have recovered are recommended to have at least one vaccination, which greatly increases protection, emphasized Popper. Of those currently recovering, more than half are at least once vaccinated.
When it is so far that there can actually only be minor outbreaks in the general population cannot be precisely predicted. At the beginning of September, Popper expected around one million additional vaccinated people, which would be necessary in this country to be pretty much on the safe side. Now, according to this calculation, only around 860,000 people are missing. Ultimately, everything now amounts to a kind of “race” between the high-risk immunization through infection and vaccination with its very low risks. The fact that a situation arises in Austria in which a lockdown is needed “must definitely not happen to us anymore – that is simply not an option,” says Popper: “Every vaccination counts.”
(SERVICE – Further information on the new calculations: http://dexhelpp.at)