Covid in Austria: the ‘Autumn Wave’ has Arrived—Before Summer

The winter wave is thus presumably to be expected before summer is over, and good riddance to 'the experts'

You’d think that people would learn from, you know, past experiences, eh? Or, to put it differently, that age would be an influencing factor on how people would somehow influence how stupid one would approach on or the other situation in life?

Well, scanning Covidistan legacy media, you’d certainly get quite a different impression, as the past couple of days clearly show.

Vacation in Times of Covid

Writing for Covid-hawkish media outlet Der Standard, well-known pencil pushers Jasmin Altrock and Magdalena Pötsch put the following word salad together yesterday:

The next wave of infections, long predicted by experts, is gathering pace. What should we be aware of now? And who should get the fourth injection as early as this summer?

The Omicron sub-variant BA.5 has already become dominant in Austria about a fortnight ago, and it continues to displace its predecessor variant, BA.2. Experts cite several reasons for this: on the one hand, the Omicron sub-variant BA.5 (just like its ‘little sister’ BA.4) bypasses immune protection even better than BA.1 and BA.2 did. On the other hand, the lifting of almost all Covid mandates is considered to be the driver of the new wave. Because of the upcoming holiday season, many are now unsure whether a fourth injection would make sense now and how best to behave at the holiday destination. Der Standard asked experts for their assessment.

You see: it is apparently possible to have your cake, and ear it, too: Mss. Altröck and Pötsch are clearly scientifically illiterate—and please, if you haven’t done so, read Robert Malone’s incisive critique—as they conflate the (temporary) lifting of mandates with the prevalence of the BA.5 variant, which ‘bypasses immune protection even better’ than earlier iterations.

The correct wording for this ‘issue’ is: why agitate for a fourth injection when, as past experience and current ‘writing’ in legacy media, such as the one cited above, clearly shows that three injections didn’t stop anything.

So, without much further ado, here is the Q&A by Der Standard (as always, emphases are mine):

Q: Are the high infection figures the beginning of the announced summer wave?

A: ‘This is definitely the beginning of the summer wave’, Gerald Gartlehner, epidemiologist at the Danube University Krems, shows himself convinced. Other experts agreed that we should expect a summer wave. Still, it was only the point in time when exactly the numbers would rise again that was difficult to predict, even for experts.

Virologist Monika Redlberger-Fritz from the [Medical University] Vienna also says that ‘the breathing space we gained from the past BA.2 wave is over now’. Due to the many infections during that wave, a fairly high level of population immunity was built up, however, it continues to weaken and leads to the fact that ‘the variants BA.4 and especially BA.5 can gain a foothold and lead to a new wave’.

Q: How will the summer wave continue to develop?

A: How steep the wave will be and how long it will last depends on various factors, says Gartlehner: ‘BA.5 is spreading more and more as population immunity is decreasing. But the most important thing is: it is an infectious wave.’ This is because BA.5 is once again more infectious than BA.2, which is why there will certainly be a further increase in the number of infections. ‘Still, it won’t put much strain on the health-care system’, the epidemiologist believes.

Redlberger-Fritz also sees it that way. Nevertheless, she warns that ‘with high infection numbers, many employees in the hospitals will also become infected and, with many on sick leave, there can be problems in maintaining hospital operations’.

Q: Does it help to look at other countries for forecasts? In Portugal, the summer wave seems to be almost over. Could it be similar here?

A: Yes and no. Yes, when we’re talking about the burden on the health-care system. Rather no, when it comes to the number of infections: ‘They can be higher or lower here, it is difficult to estimate’, says Gartlehner. There are significant differences in the populations: ‘In Portugal, significantly more people are vaccinated than in Austria.’ What can be deduced very well from comparisons, however, is the severity of the courses of infection: ‘If the health-care system in Portugal was only slightly over-burdened by the summer wave, then it will probably be similar in Austria.’

Q: Why is the summer wave already hitting us in June?

A: It was clear to many that it would come. However, according to Redlberger-Fritz, the fact that it is coming to Austria so early is probably due to three factors:

[1] ‘Because many infections happened a long time ago, existing population immunity in is already decreasing again, and thus protection against [re-] infection is also decreasing.’

[2] In addition, BA.4 and BA.5 are once again significantly more contagious than their predecessor earlier variants.

[3] For Redlberger-Fritz, another factor responsible for the rapid increase in the number of cases is the lifting of the mandates, because: ‘From an immunological point of view, it was to be expected that, when the mask mandate was lifted, infection figures would also rise again.’ That is why she advocates that ‘everyone who wants to protect themselves should always wear a mask’. After all, there is no need to mandate that.

Q: What should I do if I have planned a holiday? Does a fourth jab make sense then?

A: Currently, the National Immunisation Consortium (NIC) recommends a fourth injection only for people over 80 years of age and for all vulnerable groups. Herwig Kollaritsch, infectious disease specialist and member of the NIC, explains that ‘this recommendation could possibly be extended to the 65+ group of people in the near future’. Regardless of the recommendation, however, everyone can get the fourth jab for whom the last vaccination or the last infection with Sars-Cov-2 was more than four months ago. Kollaritsch knows: ‘Some simply feel more comfortable with a fourth injection, and this is also approved by the NIG.’

Redlberger-Fritz also emphasises that the decision to vaccinate is an individual one and explains: ‘The fourth injection boosts the immune system very quickly, and you have 60-70% protection against infection for the following 8-12 weeks. So, if you want to prevent a Covid infection in the summer months, you can get the fourth jab now and also follow the now-familiar hygiene measures, such as disinfecting your hands and wearing a mask. Large gatherings of people, such as concerts or at the beach, also lead to high infection rates in summer. If you want to protect yourself, you should avoid them.

So, that’s it from the experts.

Here’s my Reading of This

It boggles my mind—again, we see the conflation of ‘cases’ and ‘infections’, which we talked about extensively last week:

Covid in Austria: BA.4/5 on the Rise, thus New 'Protective Measures' are Rolled Out—while the Régime Abrogates Basic Civil Liberties

All these experts do is—telling everyone who’s not entirely brain-washed and too dumbed-down to understand, you know, ‘words’, that population immunity is actually due to…drum roll: infections.

In other words: the injections are beyond useless at this point.

Do note the pseudo-postmodernistic inclination by ‘the experts’ that it’s all about wanting to ‘feel safe’: if you’d like to ‘feel’ safe(r), take another injection now.

As to ‘the experts’, well, what shall I say: Kollaritsch ‘knows’, just ‘knows’ things without explaining or elucidating them.

Redlberger-Fritz emphasises that ‘vaccination’ is due to ‘individual choice’—what’s the mandate injection for, then?

Penultimately, the most important take-away as concerns the possible health-care system overload is this: it’s infections among the ‘fully-vaccinated’ and ‘recently-boosted’ health-care workers who would go on sick leave and/or be quarantined that will be causing problems.

There were no such overload issues in Portugal, which brings me to my final point: no system overload, but the ‘aim’ appears to be shifting yet again as we should now, according to ‘the experts’, ensure that we keep ‘the number of infections’ down.

This isn’t rocket science, folks, this is just tripling or quadrupling down on what hasn’t worked before.

Why?

You’ll be the judge, but I’d offer you two nuggets of bespoke wisdom:

It is difficult to get [someone] to understand something when his [or her] salary depends upon his [or her] not understanding it. ~Upton Sinclair

And this one by William F. Buckley also resonates strongly with me:

I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard.