According to the Berlin virologist Christian Drosten, population-wide immunity against the corona virus has led to the end of the corona pandemic in Germany. "We are now in a situation where we are immune across the population. That is population immunity and that is why the pandemic is over now," said Drosten at an event of the Research Network for Zoonotic Infectious Diseases on Friday in Berlin.

The Charité professor emphasized that the pandemic is not over because the omicron variant is mild. "Omicron is not mild. It's just a public misrepresentation," said Drosten. "What puts us in a better position is vaccination in particular and then the possibility of finally being able to infect ourselves without dying on the basis of vaccination." The so-called hybrid immunity protects perfectly against severe courses. Hybrid immunity is when a person is both vaccinated and infected, or has recovered.

Drosten had already commented on the end of the pandemic in an interview at the end of 2022, but then felt misunderstood. In the "Coronavirus Update" podcast on NDR-Info, the virologist said in January that he had actually said something different than what was received by parts of the public. The end of the pandemic cannot be announced in advance, you can only look at it afterwards - i.e. after this wave.

Podcast Tagesspiegel Interview (27.12.22)