Omikron: "New record figures every day"

Created: 01/20/2022, 17:47

By: Nicole Kalenda

Interest in a Covid-19 vaccination has recently declined.

© DPA

The omicron wave breaks over the district of Munich.

The health department can't keep up with the processing of the cases.

At the same time, interest in vaccinations is declining.

District of Munich

– "Well over 1000 reports", said District Administrator Christoph Göbel on Thursday in the press conference, are currently being received every day.

The seven-day incidence has long been over 1000, but the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported it yesterday as 571.1.

The reason was a technical problem.

The new positive findings must be reported to the Bavarian State Office for Health and Food Safety and RKI by 2 p.m., otherwise they will not be included in the statistics.

That didn't work on Wednesday.

Subsequent corrections necessary

The technology is one thing, the overload of the health department is another. Often not all new positive findings can be recorded in time, which leads to subsequent corrections. On Thursday, 853 new cases had been processed by 1 p.m., 400 more were still waiting to be recorded, and around 600 late mutation reports – not feasible until 2 p.m. "We can't keep up," says Göbel. "The contact persons are no longer contacted with such a high number of infected people." Only the highly vulnerable group, i.e. very old people, is considered. “I am counting on the contact persons being informed about the infected index person.” Other health authorities are likely to feel the same way. "Anyone who follows now had far too many staff three or four weeks ago," said Jörg Spennemann,Head of the health department in the district office.

So far there have been 47 confirmed omicron cases in the district, plus 3,410 suspected cases, which are usually confirmed.

"Omicron is the absolutely predominant variant," explained Göbel.

Because this mutation of the corona virus is significantly more infectious than anything that has gone before, “we can expect that we will have new record numbers every day”.

Numbers in schools and day care centers are exploding

What is happening in schools and childcare facilities is very dynamic. On Tuesday last week, on the second day after the Christmas holidays, there were four infected people. Yesterday there were 1409, of which 1268 cases had not yet been processed by the school team in the district office for reasons of capacity, but the infected were informed. Infections have also increased in nursing homes. Last week there were five residents suffering from Covid-19 and 30 employees, now there are 64 residents and 83 employees. In the asylum accommodations, the number of positive cases rose from 22 to 98 in the same period.

The vaccinations of five to eleven year olds are increasing.

By Thursday there were 10,240. Overall, however, the rush has eased.

According to Göbel, the three vaccination centers in the district are only used to a third.

The special campaigns that continue to take place in the communities would be better accepted.

But even there, only 55 injections were given on Monday in Gräfelfing and 51 on Tuesday in Planegg instead of 189 in Gräfelfing and 252 in Planegg in the last week of December.