The number of corona cases is increasing sharply.
The health authorities are reaching their limits when it comes to tracking the infection process.
The number of
corona cases
in Germany is growing rapidly.
The
federal government is
trying to contain the pandemic with new measures.
However, the
health authorities
are overwhelmed with the current infection rate.
Berlin - The number of
corona infections is
increasing rapidly.
Germany is in the middle of the
second wave of
the corona pandemic
.
Measures to contain the spread of the virus are being stepped up.
Even a lockdown is
no longer ruled out
by the
federal government
.
Health authorities cannot determine the origin of corona infections
In the fight against the insidious lung disease Covid-19, it is crucial to break chains of infection.
But the
health authorities
find it difficult to assign the outbreaks.
The
Robert Koch Institute
(RKI) found out the origin of an infection in less than 30 percent of infections, said a spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Health.
The federal states also mostly feel in the dark when it comes to determining the beginning of an infection chain.
In Bavaria alone, 80 percent of the places of infection remained unknown recently, but of the 20 percent identified, every second person was infected at home in September and early October, as a survey by the
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ, article in Bezahlschranke)
showed.
The
problem is the same
in
all federal states
.
The rate of the identified causes of the outbreak is getting smaller and smaller, the infections can hardly be tracked.
Half of the infections are said to happen in the private sphere, in families or in shared apartments.
With our new test regulation, you can be tested free of charge since October 15th - even without symptoms - if the #Corona Warning app sends you a red message.
pic.twitter.com/UKkymhYxEu
- BMG (@BMG_Bund) October 16, 2020
Health authorities criticize too many social contacts between people
Surprisingly, infections rarely occur during
social contacts
.
In North Rhine-Westphalia only seven percent of the cases cleared up at the end of September were infected with friends or acquaintances.
In Bavaria it is five to 15 percent of the cases identified.
Nevertheless, caution is still required, because most of the cases cannot be assigned to an outbreak event, the
unreported number
is big.
Recently, people's social contacts increased again significantly.
Many returned to work or to the sports club, and
parties or family celebrations
such as weddings or birthdays were also celebrated as in times before the pandemic.
In positive cases, the health department tries to track the infection process.
Most of the time, however, those affected cannot remember exactly because there were simply too many contacts - or the list is simply too long.
In the meantime, large celebrations, which are numerically limited in many places, are probably no longer the decisive drivers of the infection process, as the paper has found.
Only one in ten of the most recently assigned corona cases in Baden-Württemberg was due to large parties or weddings.
Health authorities work with outdated methods
An important means of preventing the spread of the coronavirus is wearing
mouth and nose protection
.
But problems arise especially in places where people don't wear masks.
As they say in big cities,
contact followers
often do not have the time to
request
all
contact lists
from restaurants and pubs in order to determine the actual place of infection.
Wearing # everyday masks helps to slow down # new infections, to protect people and oneself.
The correct #mask hygiene should be observed!
pic.twitter.com/QgCVt9yaXO
- Senate Department Health Care Equality (@SenGPG) October 16, 2020
At the beginning of the pandemic, the "retrospective clarification" moved into the background, according to the
FAZ
from the authorities.
It was "a noble goal that we could not achieve," says the head of a contact follow-up.
In the meantime, it is a question of who an infected person could have infected himself, i.e. "prospective clarification".
The close contacts are to be sent to quarantine.
Although this means that the chain of infection is broken, its origin often remains unknown.
The health authorities are
struggling
with
outdated working methods
in their search for the source of the infections
.
The RKI report on places of infection states that the authorities classify these places differently and often do not have the necessary digital infrastructure.
The federal government is making a lot of money available in the pact for the public health service in order to change this in the future.
At the moment, however, health authorities are still frequently sending each other
faxes
.
