Five years ago, Covid-19 changed the world to a degree previously unimaginable. Experts who guided us through the pandemic look back and assess the facts, errors and findings very dispassionately. And even though we can no longer hear it, the next pandemic may loom sooner than we would like. Keyword: bird flu.
It has actually been five years since SARS-CoV-2, a then completely unknown virus (vulgo: Corona or Covid-19), paralyzed the world in a way that was previously unthinkable. It was just before New Year’s Eve when the young doctor Li Wenliang first warned about a series of mysterious cases of pneumonia in Wuhan. Shortly afterwards, he became infected himself in January 2020 and died from it in early February at the age of 33.
Although the number of deaths rose rapidly and the virus spread like wildfire around the world, it was not until March 11 that the WHO classified Corona as a pandemic.
Planes were grounded, people stayed home
On February 25, the first corona cases were registered in Austria: two Italians living in Tyrol became infected in a hotel in Innsbruck. For everything else, keywords are enough: Ischgl, lockdowns (people actually adhered to the first one from March 16, 2020). Planes were grounded, people stayed home. There were balcony concerts, applause for nursing staff, arguments about face masks, working from home, homeschooling, hobby football team bosses switched to virology and explained the world to experts. Walking together? Driving in the car? Only with people living in the household and one of the numerous exemptions.
Do you remember the ‘mayor vaccinations’ and ‘vaccination pushers’ that caused a furor after the approval of the vaccination, which was initially celebrated as a ‘game changer’ (Chancellor Kurz)?
Source: Krone
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