The corona situation in Germany is getting worse.
The RKI now painted a gloomy Easter forecast.
Karl Lauterbach calls for schools to be closed.
Update from March 14th, 3:21 p.m.:
Now SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach speaks out.
In view of the enormously increasing corona numbers, he is calling for schools to be closed until Easter.
Lauterbach says to the Rheinische Post that the third wave has been rolling for two weeks.
The school closings are necessary because "virus mutations are spreading rapidly, especially among younger people," said Lauterbach.
Primary schools would also have to close by Easter, the SPD man continued.
In addition, in his opinion, the federal and state governments must immediately pull the Corona “emergency brake” as soon as the incidence of 100 is exceeded.
It was only on Sunday that two districts announced that they wanted to oppose this regulation.
Update from March 14, 12:33 p.m.:
The RKI situation report from Friday makes big waves.
Somewhat hidden in the page-long data description, the institute predicts an exponential increase in the 7-day incidence.
So tough times are ahead for Germany (see first report).
Now other experts agree with this assessment of the RKI.
The same goes for the developer of the Covid simulator for predicting the number of infections, the pharmacist Thorsten Lehr.
He told the picture: “The numbers are increasing, we are relaxed and the role of the new virus mutants is growing.
Their share is already over 50 percent.
At the beginning of April it will be around 90 percent.
I expect the incidence to reach the 100 mark by the end of March at the latest. ”Lehr assumes that politicians will have to pull the corona emergency brake before Easter and take back opening steps.
Corona incidence of 350?
RKI report reveals hidden Easter forecast - two details worrying
First report from March 13th:
Munich - The corona incidence in Germany has risen again.
The RKI reported a 7-day incidence of 76.1 on Saturday.
For comparison: the previous day the incidence was 72.4.
Nevertheless, the value in Germany is significantly lower compared to other countries and also compared to values in December - i.e. at the height of the second wave.
However, according to RKI estimates, this could change soon.
Corona in Germany: RKI with bitter prognosis - British mutant on the rise
RKI boss Wieler warned in the past few days that the third wave of the corona pandemic had already started in Germany.
It is precisely this assessment that the Robert Koch Institute makes clear in its current forecast.
The virus mutations, which "may lead to higher infectivity with faster spread or to limited effectiveness of a component of the immune response," continue to be particularly "worrying" for the RKI.
The so-called British mutant B.1.1.7 in particular is therefore on the rise in Germany.
It has now been verified in all federal states.
In the past week, according to the RKI, almost 55 percent of the positive samples examined were due to the British variant.
Three weeks earlier, the share was still 22 percent.
RKI with gloomy Easter prognosis: incidence increases exponentially
The RKI also shows this spread of the variant in its report on Friday.
The isolated incidence of variant B.1.1.7 has increased exponentially since calendar week two.
This incidence doubled about every twelve days.
In contrast, the incidences of all other variants would decrease.
These trends are superimposed, "which overall led to the only slowly increasing 7-day incidence of the last 4 weeks (calendar week 06 to 09)", according to the RKI.
Now, however, this trend is accelerating: From calendar week 10 (current week), the RKI now expects that "a significantly steeper increase (of the incidence, editor's note) will become apparent".
And this trend will continue according to the prognosis: As early as calendar week 14 (April 5 to April 11), the RKI expects the number of cases to be above the level of Christmas.
Easter Sunday falls on April 4th in 2021.
For the week starting April 12, the RKI considers a 7-day incidence of around 350 to be possible - with the institute specifying the range from 220 to 500, depending on the course.
According to the
Spiegel
calculation, this would mean almost 41,000 new corona infections per day.
There are two things to consider with this forecast: On the one hand, the gloomy scenario does not yet include any lockdown loosening.
It is just a mathematical calculation based on the previous numbers.
In addition, the previous corona measures for virus mutation B.1.1.7 do not seem to be able to stop, as the variant has been spreading exponentially since the beginning of January.
(rjs)
List of rubric lists: © Kay Nietfeld / dpa