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First set up, then canceled: Christmas markets in the Corona autumn
Photo: Fabian Strauch / dpa
While the pandemic threatens to get out of control in some regions of Germany, the new South African virus variant Omicron has apparently already arrived in Europe.
Two planes from Cape Town and Johannesburg landed in Amsterdam on Friday - with more than 80 infected passengers on board, tests showed.
It is still unclear whether they were infected with the mutant.
The World Health Organization (WHO) classified the variant as "worrying" on Friday.
Experts fear that the many mutations in the variant will cause the pathogen to spread faster or that the vaccines will lose their protective effect.
A first case was confirmed in Belgium on Friday.
"My great concern is that there could be a variant that is as infectious as Delta and as dangerous as Ebola," said the chairman of the World Medical Association, Frank Ulrich Montgomery.
The SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach said in the ARD that if the potentially dangerous variant would also reach Germany, it would be a huge problem.
"Because there is nothing worse than getting a particularly dangerous variant into a running wave." The variant seems to be dangerous for vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
"That's why we have to work with travel restrictions here, every day that can be won until this variant comes, really counts here," says Lauterbach.
The federal government will restrict entry from South Africa and seven other African countries from Sunday.
Lauterbach emphasized that the booster vaccinations would also protect against this variant because the booster effect is so enormous.
However, if this variant were to gain massive acceptance, which is currently not known, “then a new vaccine would have to be developed.
It would then be on the market in three months «.
Economy demands vaccination
While tens of thousands of football fans flock to the stadiums in some cities at the weekend, calls for lockdowns and compulsory vaccinations are growing louder.
"In parts of Germany with extremely high incidence rates, it will not work without a lockdown," said the chief executive of the German Association of Towns and Municipalities, Gerd Landsberg.
"Our health system is reaching its limits, the number of infections is rising unchecked," says Landsberg.
Full football stadiums and major events sent a completely wrong signal.
The measures decided so far by the federal and state governments have evidently not been sufficient to effectively combat the pandemic.
"At the same time, we finally need a medium-term strategy so that Germany does not get caught in the endless loop of the pandemic," said Landsberg.
"This includes, for example, the introduction of mandatory vaccinations, especially for job-specific groups in medical professions and in nursing."
Lauterbach criticizes the lack of 2G controls
Union faction leader Ralph Brinkhaus is also in favor of a partial lockdown.
“The situation is extremely dangerous, the situation is acute.
We have to act immediately.
In any case, the parliamentary group of the Union is ready to come to a special session of the Bundestag in Berlin within 24 hours for additional measures, ”Brinkhaus told“ Welt am Sonntag ”.
In particular, what is causing major problems is that the controls of 2G and 2G-plus are not taking place adequately at all, said SPD health expert Lauterbach.
"And it is precisely these big events and also the full bars, the full shops that cause us problems."
From the point of view of business representatives, there is no avoiding compulsory vaccination.
“Although that comes too late to fight the fourth corona wave, it spares people and the economy from worse.
In view of the dramatic development of the pandemic, this is the only way to avert an impending lockdown, "said Markus Jerger, head of the Federal Association of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported 67,125 new positive tests within 24 hours.
That is 3201 cases more than on Saturday a week ago, when 63,924 new infections were reported.
The seven-day incidence continues to rise to 444.3 from 438.2 the previous day.
303 other people died in connection with the coronavirus, making a total of 100,779.
So far, more than 5.71 million corona tests have been positive in Germany.
fww / dpa / rtr