20 million infections - trouble because of relaxation

Created: 03/27/2022, 14:51

In Germany, the mark of 20 million infections has been reached since the beginning of the corona pandemic.

© Jens Kalaene/dpa-Zentralbidl/dpa

The official number of corona infections since the beginning of the pandemic in Germany has exceeded the 20 million mark.

The federal states are at odds with the federal government's decision on countermeasures that are still possible.

Berlin – In the federal states, the so-called hotspot rule for corona measures is causing annoyance in view of the numerous new infections.

There is great disagreement in the state governments as to whether the legal requirements for identifying hotspots with high infections are currently met or not, according to a survey by the German Press Agency in the 16 states.

In hotspots, not all previous protective measures are possible under certain conditions, but more than in the context of basic protection.

At the weekend, the nationwide number of detected corona infections since the beginning of the pandemic exceeded the 20 million mark.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the value of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week on Sunday as 1723.8 and thus slightly lower than the previous day (1758.4) - however, no data from Baden-Württemberg and Brandenburg are included .

Hotspot Mecklenburg-West Pomerania

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has already declared the whole country a hotspot by the end of April.

Hamburg intends to do the same.

On the other hand, other states such as Baden-Württemberg and Lower Saxony currently see no legal basis for a hotspot regulation despite the record number of new infections, although they would welcome the measures being retained.

Still others are against an extension of the measures that have been in place so far.

Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) announced that at a conference of health ministers this Monday, talks should be held with the federal states about making the hotspot regulation workable.

The federal government's decision to lift most of the corona rules was met with widespread protest in the federal states.

After a transitional period until April 2nd, they can only impose further restrictions with more mask requirements and access rules if the state parliament determines a critical situation for hotspots.

There are no threshold values ​​for when this should take effect.

Holetschek: The whole of Germany is a hotspot

Bavaria's Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU) told the "Augsburger Allgemeine" (Monday) that the whole of Germany was a single hotspot.

He criticized: “The hotspot rules are far too vague and do not allow us to implement them in a legally secure manner.” He thinks it would be good if masks were still compulsory indoors nationwide for four weeks after April 2nd.

Then you can reassess the situation.

He and his colleagues from North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Baden-Württemberg and Saarland are therefore calling for the transitional arrangement to be extended for four weeks beyond April 2, as the Düsseldorf Minister Karl-Josef Laumann (CDU) told the dpa.

more on the subject

RKI registers 111,224 new infections - incidence at 1723.8

RKI: More than 1.5 million corona cases in one week

"Condemned to inactivity": Further trouble about the relaxation of the corona virus

The Bremen epidemiologist Hajo Zeeb told the German Press Agency about the possible further development of the infection process: "I expect a further increase in the daily reported cases for a few days, maybe weeks." The omicron subtype BA.2 has with the current loosening still very good distribution potential.

Due to seasonal effects and gradually increasing human immunity, a plateau and a drop can then be expected.

Stable situation in the intensive care units

The occupancy of the intensive care units is currently stagnating at just over 2000 cases, as the director of the Hamburg University Clinic for Intensive Care Medicine, Stefan Kluge, explained.

"The situation is stable in the intensive care units." The normal stations are quite full.

“The hospital burden is there, but it is easy to handle.” However, what has had a particularly strong impact on hospitals nationwide is the loss of staff due to infections.

“We have never had a failure rate like this, which you can also hear from other hospitals, during the pandemic,” said Kluge.

Even if the booster rate among doctors and nurses is high and they are usually only mildly ill, they are absent for seven to ten days.

This can be clearly felt.

The health authorities reported 111,224 new infections to the RKI (as of Sunday morning) within one day (previous week: 131,792).

However, experts assume a high number of cases that are not recorded in the RKI data.

One reason is the limited capacity of health authorities, for example, and contacts are often only tracked to a limited extent.

According to the RKI, fewer and fewer health authorities are reporting their data at the weekend.

According to this information, 49 deaths were recorded across Germany within 24 hours - as many as a week ago.

The RKI has counted 20,256,278 proven infections with Sars-CoV-2 since the beginning of the pandemic.

The actual total number is likely to be significantly higher, as many infections go undetected.

dpa