The positive trend continues: the curve of COVID-19 cases in Germany is pointing further down. The German health authorities have currently reported 6729 new corona infections to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) within one day. There were also 217 new deaths in Germany in connection with the pandemic.
Last Monday, the RKI recorded 214 new deaths and 7141 new infections within 24 hours. In the case of infections, that would be a decrease of 400 infections compared to the week, a decrease of almost six percent.
The decline could have been even stronger because not all information was available last Monday. The federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate had only partially transmitted its data. Another limitation in the data analysis: On Mondays, the number of cases recorded is usually lower, partly because fewer tests are carried out on the weekend.
The so-called seven-day incidence – i.e. the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants within a week – currently has a value of 111.2 in Germany. It is about the same as the day before. The aim is a nationwide value of less than 50. Germany is still a long way from that.
Warning of mutants
Experts anticipate that the numbers will even rise again. The reason for this is the virus mutations discovered, which are considered to be much more contagious. The federal government therefore urges citizens to be cautious and does not even want to think about relaxing the existing anti-corona measures. Chancellery chief Helge Braun is convinced that the mutated form of the corona virus will gain the upper hand in Germany.
Chancellery Minister Braun: “Mutante will take the lead”
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“We are currently seeing that we are already dealing with the mutant in several hospitals. That means that this has arrived in our country, and that is why at some point – as in other countries – she will take the lead and cause problems make “, said Braun the ARD.
It is now all the more important to reduce the number of infections “very much” and thus remove the basis for further spread of the mutation, added Braun. “We want to keep it out of the country as long as possible and keep it very low where it is already. You won’t be able to do that in the long run,” said Braun.
Even harder cuts?
The changed coronavirus, which has the designation B.1.1.7, had so far mainly occurred in Great Britain. It has not yet been possible to say with certainty whether this variant is not only easier to transmit but also more deadly than the original pathogen. Virus mutations are also circulating in Brazil and South Africa with a particular risk.
The SPD health politician Karl Lauterbach, who is also a professor of epidemiology, therefore sees Germany facing even more extensive restrictions. “We will need a very hard and very well-functioning lockdown,” he told the “Bild” newspaper. The new variants are of a completely different caliber. Similar to the well-known virologist Christian Drosten from the Berlin Charité, Lauterbach does not assume that the summer with its higher temperatures will largely stop the spread of the virus.
Closed primary school in Rietberg: opening in February?
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In view of the situation, isolated calls for a lockdown to end in mid-February were blocked over the weekend. “The threat situation is still too great,” said the new CDU party leader Armin Laschet, for example.
Nevertheless, the chairwoman of the Conference of Ministers of Education, Britta Ernst, believes that the first school openings in early February are possible. “Certainly not completely”, the Brandenburg education minister restricted in the “Rheinische Post”. “But I think that if there is a corresponding infection situation, for example with alternating lessons, it is possible.” Initially, this could only apply to final grades and the first grades.
AR / ww (rtr, afp)
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