When will the corona measures be relaxed in Germany?
The RKI examined this with a model study and came to an unsatisfactory result.
Berlin - Many citizens are wondering when the measures and contact restrictions to combat the Corona * pandemic will end or when they will next be relaxed.
The Robert Koch Institute * dealt with this question and now used a model calculation to show when more contacts would be possible again without overloading the intensive care units.
The vaccination progress was also taken into account.
Corona: RKI model calculation shows how easing affects hospital capacities
Using various parameters, experts and epidemiologists analyzed more precisely how relaxed contact restrictions would affect the number of infections and the number of corona intensive care patients.
The first mild easing should therefore only be justifiable from May or even the beginning of June.
According to the model calculation, any far-reaching easing before this point in time could also overload the clinics.
The “avoidance of the overload of intensive capacities” could succeed “as soon as easing is carried out carefully from May / June 2021 and then with a gradual increase in the degree of easing until late summer, when a large part of the population is vaccinated” Result of the RKI study.
Relaxation would only make sense as soon as the majority of the population has received at least one vaccination.
Corona: RKI model calculation presents three scenarios - will easing not take place until June?
The scientists are looking at three different scenarios for returning to the state it was in before the pandemic.
The experts calculated the consequences of an increase in contact behavior among the population by 20, 40 and 60 percent and their consequences.
In all three cases, the intensive capacities would be overloaded with easing from May 1st.
"With a 40- and 60-percent return of contacts to pre-pandemic contact behavior, the emergency reserve is also significantly exceeded," the epidemiologists warned in the study.
The study shows that a return of contacts by 20 percent would not lead to the current capacities being exceeded until June 1.
A return to 60 percent of pre-pandemic contacts by May 1st, June 1st or July 1st would, according to the model, cause more than 1,000 deaths per day.
Only a 20 percent return of contacts from June 1, 2021 would prevent the study after the immediate increase in the death rate.
Corona: Study authors point to weakness - vaccination progress is an important element for model calculation
However, the authors of the study also point out the weaknesses of the model.
Accordingly, the lack of efficacy data for the corona vaccine Curevac * is a gap in the study.
Here, given the same vaccine technology and promising data from the first two study phases, the scientists assumed equivalence to the other manufacturers.
Even the spread of the British virus variant B.1.1.7 * as well as the measures taken by the government to contain and relax the pandemic were taken into account for the model calculation.
The RKI modeling does not give much courage, but the most important message is that the vaccination progress is decisive for the relaxation.
Should the federal government advance the first vaccinations across the board, this could be beneficial.
(ajr) * merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
List of rubric lists: © Ralph Peters / imago-images
