Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) – According to an analysis by statutory health insurance physicians, almost every third resident of North Rhine-Westphalia has had a corona infection this year and has thus built up a certain immunity to the omicron variant. “In North Rhine-Westphalia there have been around 6.6 million reported laboratory-confirmed corona cases since the beginning of the pandemic,” said Viola Graefe, who is responsible for data analysis at the North Rhine Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, on Tuesday in Düsseldorf. This also includes multiple infections. 5.2 million of all corona cases registered in NRW to date occurred in the current calendar year.
At the beginning of the year, the Delta variant still played a certain role. The vast majority of corona cases this year can be attributed to one of the various omicron subtypes, explained Gräfe. According to data from the Robert Koch Institute, type BA.5 currently predominates in 97 percent of cases.
With 17.9 million residents in NRW and a little more than 5 million reported corona cases in the current year alone, one can say “that almost every third person has already had an omicron infection in the course of this year and thus one built up some immunity to the omicron variant.”
In addition, the data analyst at KV North Rhine added that a large part of the population had been immunized or boosted by a corona vaccination. The expected autumn wave will not hit a population that for the most part has not had any contact with the new type of corona virus, she explained.
By next Monday at the latest, the new vaccines from the manufacturers Biontech/Pfizer and Moderna, which have been adapted to the Omicron variant BA.1, will arrive in the medical practices that have ordered them, explained the head of KV North Rhine, Frank Bergmann. However, many of the resident doctors in the region would be waiting for the recommendation of the Standing Vaccination Commission, which is still pending.