Shortly after Christmas, on December 29th, a horror number made the rounds in Germany.
1129 coronavirus-related deaths were reported within 24 hours.
A sad high in the pandemic that has been rampant for almost a year.
Shortly before and after, however, other numbers seem to give cause for hope.
The number of confirmed new infections on December 27 and January 3 was lower than it has been for a long time.
On January 3, the Robert Koch Institute reported 9,847 new cases, and for the first time since the end of October the value was below the 10,000 mark.
But what is the cause of these apparently contradicting developments?
As already announced in advance and also mentioned in most reports, there were sometimes considerable fluctuations in the number of cases due to the holidays.
This leads to fluctuating test and case numbers
Doctors' surgeries, health facilities and also the authorities were less staffed over the holidays, similar to the other weekends.
In addition, people are likely to have behaved differently on the holidays than usual. If the symptoms are mild or unclear, it is conceivable that they did not go to the doctor or the test center immediately and instead postponed the test until after the holidays.
Or they made a quick test out of caution, the results of which, however, are not included in the official RKI figures.
As a result, there were initially fewer tests and possibly more tests and traffic jams in the laboratories after the holidays.
That is a likely explanation for the fluctuations in the numbers reported.
The following graphic shows how much the Christmas effect affects the number of tests carried out.
The number of weekly corona tests in the Christmas week was as low as it was last in August last year.
Data on new infections can only be interpreted in a solid manner when medical practices, laboratories and health authorities are working normally again and a period of time can be observed that is not distorted by public holidays.
That will not be possible until the end of this week at the earliest.
The RKI is even more cautious and on request explains: "A reliable assessment of the epidemiological developments will not be possible until the end of next week / beginning of the week after next at the earliest."
The hospital statistics
The hospital statistics are much less influenced by the holidays than the number of cases.
The treatment of corona patients continued unabated during the holidays.
If you look at the number of corona intensive care patients, there is also an increase over the holidays:
For the first time since autumn, however, there have recently been declining numbers on several days.
The growth in the number of patients in intensive care seems to be at least weakening.
However, the time delay between infection and the start of intensive treatment must also be taken into account.
This averages around seven days.
The development of the number of patients in intensive care at the beginning of the year therefore still reflects the infection rate around Christmas.
There is therefore the cautious hope that the second shutdown has at least slowed the number of serious cases.
The coming days and weeks will only show whether the measures were sufficient to reduce the number of patients.
The same applies to the question of how family celebrations and travel on Christmas days and at the turn of the year have influenced the infection rate.
Summary
The data situation for the upcoming decision on the continuation of the corona measures is generally fraught with some uncertainty.
There are rough signs that the infection process was at least slowed down by the second shutdown.
So far it is difficult to say what effects the Christmas festival itself had.
It is clear, however, that the numbers are currently well above the target of a maximum of 50 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week and are therefore too high for the health authorities to track the infections.
In addition, the mutated coronavirus variant that is spreading in Great Britain, which has already been detected in Germany, urges caution.
All signs point to an extension of the currently valid measures.
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