Corona in Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen: the health department focuses on infected people

Created: 01/22/2022, 09:00

By: Andreas Steppan

The Bundeswehr is also currently helping in the Tölz health department.

(symbol photo) © Philipp Schulze

The new corona infections in Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen are increasing rapidly.

Under these conditions, the health department has to make cutbacks when contacting infected people and contact persons.

Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen

– The sharp increase in the number of new corona infections is taking its toll on the health department’s care of cases.

As the district office announced on its Facebook page on Friday, those who tested positive will no longer be called, but only informed by letter about their quarantine.

This also means that the health department employees do not ask whether the infected person is suffering from symptoms or not.

To distinguish between Covid positives with and without symptoms, the district office has always published a breakdown of numbers.

That's gone now.

Mixture of personal responsibility and contact tracking

As far as close contacts of infected people are concerned, the health department relies on a mixture of contact tracing and personal responsibility on the part of citizens, as can be seen from a response from authority spokeswoman Marlis Peischer to our newspaper’s request. "At the end of last year, the health department concentrated most of its efforts on case processing," says Peischer. The authority is thus focusing on processing the "index cases", i.e. on the infected. In addition, the focus is on “larger groups that can be considered as close contact persons”, for example in schools, daycare centers and other facilities.

This means: As a single contact person, you cannot necessarily assume that the health department will contact you.

Rather, those affected are called upon to read the instructions on the website of the district office (www.lra-toelz.de/Coronavirus), which must be observed in the event of an infection or close contact with an infected person.

In the case of vaccinated and recovered contact persons, the health department does not even come into play

"It doesn't even come into play," says Peischer, when the health department comes into play when the contact person is fully vaccinated or has recovered and shows no symptoms.

These people are encouraged to check themselves for symptoms, limit contacts and carry out self-tests.

“In this case, quarantine is not necessary as long as there are no symptoms,” explains Peischer.

If there are symptoms, a PCR test is pending.

In order to cope with the high number of cases, the health department continues to receive support from the Bundeswehr.

According to Peischer, a total of 36 people work in case processing and 13 in contact tracing.

You can get an appointment for a PCR test no later than the next day

The question of whether the PCR test capacities are becoming scarce is also currently being discussed in the media.

Peischer does not share this concern.

Due to the increased demand, the number of testations in the district has also increased in recent weeks.

The test center on the Flinthöhe has also extended its opening hours.

You can usually get an appointment the same day or the next.

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