Corona summit on Tuesday - calls for new measures

Created: 12/20/2021Updated: 12/20/2021, 5:12 AM

Experts fear that further restrictions on contact cannot be avoided.

© Sebastian Willnow / dpa-Zentralbild / dpa

The Omikron variant carries the risk of "explosive spread", warn experts.

In the short term, the federal and state governments are setting a new corona summit.

Are there any more stringent restrictions?

Berlin - The rapid spread of the Omikron variant of the coronavirus could soon result in stricter measures to protect against infection.

Before Christmas, the federal and state governments will discuss how to proceed on Tuesday - Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and North Rhine-Westphalia's Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) as chairman of the Prime Minister's Conference in the evening agreed on this.

The Green health politician Janosch Dahmen brought a lockdown after the holidays into play.

“We have to get ahead of the Omikron wave with our measures.

Our actions today will determine tomorrow's pandemic situation, ”said Dahmen of the German Press Agency.

“Given the extremely high transferability of Omikron, we will probably not be able to avoid a lockdown after Christmas.

A possible scenario would be a well-planned lockdown in early January. "

Lauterbach against lockdown before Christmas

Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach had ruled out a lockdown before Christmas. When asked what about the time after the holidays, the SPD politician said on the Bild show “The right questions”: “I think we won't have a hard lockdown there either.” But he wrote on Twitter, man must run an offensive booster vaccination campaign and "tighten the measures to reduce contact".

The Federal Government's new Corona Expert Council had warned that Omikron was bringing a "new dimension" to the pandemic.

The experts already see a “need for action” in the coming days.

"Effective nationwide coordinated countermeasures to control the infection process must be prepared, in particular well-planned and well-communicated contact restrictions," the statement said.

The currently applicable measures would also have to be continued "even more stringently".

Omikron is characterized by a much stronger transferability and undermining existing immune protection, according to the experts.

The variant infects significantly more people in a very short time and also includes those who have recovered and those who have been vaccinated more in the infection process: "This can lead to an explosive spread."

The health system is threatened with extreme stress

The Expert Council also warned: "If the spread of the Omikron variant in Germany continues, a relevant part of the population would be ill and / or in quarantine at the same time.

This would put an extreme strain on the health system and the entire critical infrastructure of our country. ”These include hospitals, police, fire brigade, rescue services, telecommunications, electricity and water supply and the corresponding logistics.

The federal-state consultations on Tuesday should focus on preparatory measures to protect the critical infrastructure - but also on further contact-reducing measures to protect the health system from an impending overload as a result of the Omikron wave.

This was communicated by both sides after the agreement between Scholz and Wüst.

The development of the Omikron variant shows “that we have to be very concerned about overloading our health system and ensuring basic public tasks,” said the deputy leader of the Greens in the Bundestag, Marie Klein-Schmeink, of “Welt”. "Therefore, further precautions urgently need to be taken to counteract as well as possible." Should it need tightening, the SPD parliamentary group in the Bundestag is ready to take decisions at short notice, says the newspaper's deputy chairman Dagmar Schmidt.

“Every additional, unnecessary contact is one too many.

In the worst case, we expect up to 700,000 new infections per day, ”said Union parliamentary deputy Sepp Müller (CDU) of the“ world ”.

That is why there is now a need for “a legal basis for a national lockdown”.

AfD parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel told the newspaper on the other hand: "Lockdowns do not bring anything and are counterproductive, the attempts so far have sufficiently shown."

Immunologist expects another lockdown

The Secretary General of the German Society for Immunology, Carsten Watzl, told the “Augsburger Allgemeine” that he “unfortunately sees a lockdown approaching us that will affect us all”.

"The first reports indicate that even after the booster, the protection against an omicron infection could only be around 75 percent, while it is well over 90 percent with Delta after the third vaccination." That would mean that Many more vaccinated people could infect with Omikron, he emphasized.

"We will have to reduce the incidences, which are soaring at Omikron, very much, and we will not succeed in this now, as in this fourth wave, with booster vaccinations, but only again with a distance and contact restrictions," said Watzl.

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The President of the German Medical Association, Klaus Reinhardt, told the "Tagesspiegel": "There is a risk that we will have to go into a new lockdown." Netherlands, "it is unlikely that further contact restrictions will be unavoidable".

UK now virus variant area

Because of the massive spread of the omicron variant in Great Britain, the country has been a virus variant area since the night.

Entry into Germany from such areas is possible with severe restrictions.

Airlines are now essentially only allowed to carry German citizens or people living in Germany from Great Britain to Germany.

There is also a two-week quarantine obligation for those entering the country - including those who have been vaccinated and those who have recovered.

Omikron is also spreading rapidly, but not only in European countries.

A new, strict lockdown has been in effect in the Netherlands since Sunday, and Denmark is also shutting down large parts of public life.

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