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People with mouth and nose protection sit on a train
Photo: Solskin / Getty Images
It has come as the experts expected: the number of cases would fluctuate as a result of the holidays at the beginning of January, many had predicted.
Therefore, in the first few weeks after the turn of the year, little can be said about whether and how the measures to contain the pandemic are noticeable.
The statements were to be interpreted as a warning not to be too early if on some days the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) might report lower case numbers or the seven-day incidences in the republic would fall.
In fact, the RKI had given the latter value across Germany after the turn of the year as below 130.
But then it rose again and is now over 160 per 100,000 inhabitants for the second day in a row.
There are still strong differences between the regions.
The highest incidences were found in Thuringia with 324.2 and Saxony with 304.4.
Bremen had the lowest value with 83.7.
"The decline observed over the holidays and the turn of the year does not continue," said the RKI management report on Tuesday evening.
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Presentation of the seven-day incidence of Covid-19 cases in Germany by age group and reporting weeks
Photo: Robert Koch Institute
So the increasing incidence values come as no surprise.
But the report adds: "Instead, significant increases can be observed in all age groups, especially in the younger age groups."
In fact, in the last reporting week, the values increased in the age groups from 20 to 34 years.
As the RKI heat map above shows, they are consistently over 200, especially in the three groups 20 to 24 years, 25 to 29 years and 30 to 34 years. In the last two weeks, these groups and people up to 60 years of age still had it Located in about an incidence range, but now the younger ones are apparently more affected.
Of course, the trend has yet to be confirmed, a week is still too short to investigate the cause.
And even in the course of the Corona autumn, these age groups were sometimes more affected than older people.
But at least one can now assume that the numbers can generally be trusted more and that reporting delays due to the holidays by the offices and laboratories are a smaller factor.
However, it is not surprising that the virus is particularly raging in this age group.
People between the ages of 20 and 35 are likely to be heavily involved in their jobs, have a lot of social contacts and be more mobile than other age groups.
The short-term increase may also be due to New Year's Eve, when the younger age group celebrates with friends.
However, this is speculative, as is the hypothesis that the virus mutations currently rampant may have something to do with the trend.
Doctors had reported that the variant, which, according to previous knowledge, came from South Africa and has now also been proven in Germany, may have played a role in the second wave in South Africa.
More younger people there had been infected with Sars-CoV-2 than before, it said.
The mutation N501Y could be involved, which changes the surface protein and affects both the British mutant and the South African mutant.
However, there is far too little data to make reliable statements, emphasized researchers in the journal "Science".
It is unclear which age groups are meant by this.
But the values in Germany are still high among elderly people, shows the RKI heat map.
From the age of 80, the incidence values are over 200 and skyrocket.
And the number of people who died from or with the virus within 24 hours was again over 1000. The high of 1188 new deaths was reached on Friday.
After all, there has been good news recently: The number of patients who have to be treated in intensive care units in German hospitals because of Covid-19 has fallen.
The occupancy of the intensive care beds, for which no delays due to the holidays were to be expected, had decreased somewhat.
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