Corona incidence on the up – Hamburg is the first federal state to report daily numbers

Created: 04/24/2022, 04:51

By: Marc Dimitriu

Hanover: An advertising poster "Here as before, PCR tests for everyone!" is hanging on Aegidientorplatz.

© Julian Stratenschulte/dpa

After the Easter holidays, more corona cases will be reported again.

This is probably due to the many late registrations.

A federal state wants to stop reporting the daily numbers.

• Corona incidence continues to rise: the trend continues for the fourth day in a row

• Fewer PCR tests carried out: Before Easter, only about half as many tests were carried out as in March.

• Experts skeptical about the fourth vaccination: Another booster does not make sense for everyone.

Update from April 23, 12:30 p.m .:

Will Germany soon be completely free of the obligation to isolate people infected with the corona virus?

After Health Minister Karl Lauterbach had cashed in on the corresponding plans at the beginning of April, the FDP in particular is now reopening the discussion.

Other European countries have already taken this route and abolished the obligation to isolate.

According to the FDP, Germany should now follow this example.

Corona incidence continues to rise: high number of unreported cases suspected

Update from April 23, 7 a.m.:

The nationwide seven-day incidence has increased for the fourth day in a row.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the value of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants per week on Saturday morning as 821.7.

For comparison: the day before the value was 733.4.

A week ago, the nationwide incidence was 876.5 (previous month: 1734.2).

The health authorities in Germany reported 135,079 new corona infections to the RKI within one day.

This is evident from numbers that reflect the status of the RKI dashboard at 5 a.m.

A week ago there were 37,568 registered infections.

According to the new information, 234 deaths were recorded across Germany within 24 hours.

A week ago there were 29 deaths.

The RKI has counted 24,141,333 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.

Hamburg only reports infection numbers weekly - pandemic situation is coming to an end

Update from April 22, 12:06 p.m .: In

the future, the Hamburg health authority will only report weekly on the course of the corona pandemic.

With the end of the pandemic situation determined by the citizenship, the daily publication of the figures will also be discontinued, said authority spokesman Martin Helfrich on Friday.

From May, the seven-day incidence, the number of infected people in Hamburg hospitals and the number of corona intensive care patients would be published on the Internet every Tuesday.

The hotspot rule used by the citizenship to extend the corona measures in Hamburg expires on April 30th.

The Senate will discuss how to proceed next Tuesday.

However, it is not expected that there will be a further extension.

This would mean that almost all corona measures would no longer apply in Hamburg from May 1st.

On the one hand, Helfrich gave the reason for the change in the reports on the corona numbers as the number of corona tests, which is expected to continue to fall with the abolition of the measures.

In addition, the incidence of infection is likely to ease further towards the summer due to seasonal effects.

Experts skeptical about fourth vaccination - not useful for everyone

Update from April 22, 9:30 a.m.:

Experts

continue to be very skeptical in the debate about extending the recommendation for four-fourth corona vaccinations.

Wanting to achieve complete protection against infection through repeated boosters is probably not a realistic goal, said Christoph Neumann-Haefelin, head of the Translational Virus Immunology working group at the University Hospital Freiburg on Thursday afternoon in a video link.

"The aim of the booster vaccination must be to protect the various groups of people from really serious infection progression."

In healthy people without an immune problem, a relatively robust T-cell response lasts almost a year after the second vaccination, Neumann-Haefelin explained.

The first booster vaccination temporarily increases the protection again, also through increased levels of antibodies, and contributes to its duration.

So-called neutralizing antibodies can - if there are enough - already prevent an infection, they are the first line of defense in the body.

T cells, on the other hand, are important for protection against severe courses.

After corona vaccinations, the levels of neutralizing antibodies in the blood, which initially increased, drop again very quickly.

To protect against infection with the Omicron variant, which appeared at the end of 2021, significantly higher levels are required than with earlier variants - this is one of the reasons why the booster campaign in Germany was expanded.

The drop in antibody levels after an infection or vaccination is "a completely normal process," said the scientific director of the German Rheumatism Research Center Berlin, Andreas Radbruch.

What is often neglected in the discussion: There is then less mass, but the quality of the antibodies increases - "and quite drastically".

This very important process (affinity maturation) lasts about half a year and cannot be shortened: If you are now considering a second booster, you can “wait until autumn” against this background.

All in all, Radbruch described the vaccination as “extremely efficient”, and long-lasting protection can be assumed.

Corona in Germany: Incidence continues to rise - number of PCR tests decreases significantly and leads to problems

First report from April 22, 2022:

Berlin – The seven-day incidence in Germany has risen again compared to the previous day.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave it 733.4 on Friday morning (April 22).

For comparison: the day before the value was 720.6.

A week ago, the nationwide incidence was 1001.5 (previous month: 1733.4).

Corona in Germany: Incidence increases again after reporting stops

The health authorities in Germany reported 161,718 new corona infections to the RKI within one day.

A week ago there were 156,864 registered infections.

According to the new information, 289 deaths were recorded across Germany within 24 hours.

A week ago there were 212 deaths.

The RKI gave the hospitalization incidence on Thursday at 4.24 (Wednesday at 3.71).

Here, too, there are days with incomplete reports.

The value also includes many people with a positive corona test who have another main illness.

When considering the values, it must be taken into account that individual states do not report data every weekday, and at weekends, for example, Baden-Württemberg, Lower Saxony, Brandenburg and Saxony do not, or only partially, report data.

This in turn leads to late registrations on the following days.

A comparison of daily values ​​is therefore becoming increasingly difficult.

In addition, experts have been assuming for some time that there will be a large number of cases not recorded by the RKI - due to overworked health authorities and because not all infected people have a PCR test done.

Only these count in the statistics.

Fewer and fewer PCR tests carried out: Only half as many tests before Easter

The RKI weekly report also shows that fewer and fewer PCR tests have recently been carried out in more than 200 laboratories nationwide, on which the official statistics are based: After the number in March was sometimes significantly more than 2 million per week, it was in the week before Easter only around 1.1 million.

The significant decline is also due to the Good Friday holiday, writes the RKI.

According to the report, more than every second test (around 55 percent) was positive, which is about as much as in March.

Priority is given to testing people with symptoms.