Why did the coronavirus pandemic spread so quickly? When can we expect the next wave? And does the government need to make vaccination mandatory after all? These are some of the questions that were debated during a round-table discussion about the pandemic at the Centre Hospitalier de Luxembourg (CHL) on Thursday.
All of the guests agreed that globalisation and a lack of immunity were the main causes that enabled the coronavirus to spread as quickly as it did. Vic Arendt, Infectious Disease Specialist at the CHL, stressed that not enough lessons had been learned from previous pandemics. According to Arendt, masks should have been made mandatory much sooner, while hand hygiene was given too much importance, seeing as people contract the disease through respiratory infection.
Virologist Claude Muller from the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH) stated that it is “certain” that the next wave will come in autumn. However, what is not as certain, according to Muller, is how it will play out exactly. The virologist explained that in his eyes, the rate of hospitalisation has now become more important than the overall incidence rate. And when it comes to hospitalisations, Muller stated that he is “optimistic” that Luxembourg will not experience an increase, particularly when it comes to patients in intensive care.
The vaccination rate among nursing staff remains a crucial question, Arendt said, adding that he is in favour of making vaccination mandatory for nurses.
Paul Wilmes from the University of Luxembourg argued that it is not enough anymore to tackle the problem of vaccine hesitancy with “the hard sciences” alone. For Wilmes, it is now up to social sciences to find out why people refuse to get vaccinated and then come up with the best ways to approach them.
Regarding potential booster shots, Muller referred to figures published in Israel, stating that there really is “a dramatic difference” between third and second doses. However, due to ethical concerns, the government has been hesitant when it comes to offering booster shots to large parts of the population. The World Health Organisation (WHO) does not recommend that countries who have administered second doses start to offer third doses, seeing as other countries have only been able to vaccinate a very small percentage of their own population.
Arendt argued that while the figures from Israel regarding a third dose are “impressive and interesting”, it should be kept in mind that it is so far the only study on this topic. For the time being, there is no “global consensus” on the usefulness of offering booster shots to everyone.
