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Intensive care unit in Porto Alegre, Brazil: the numbers are increasing
Photo: Jefferson Bernardes / dpa
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Because about the third wave: "The situation is serious"
06.17 a.m.:
Lower Saxony's Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD) described the third corona wave as dangerous and encouraged understanding for the withdrawal of lockdown loosening.
"The situation is serious," said the SPD politician to the editorial network Germany (RND).
He warned that pushing the number of new infections down again would be far more difficult this time than in spring or autumn.
"The third wave is driven by more contagious virus mutations and hits a corona-weary population - that makes them so extremely dangerous."
Weil sees no room for relaxation: "In this explosive situation, stubbornly working through the opening plan would be irresponsible," he emphasized.
Instead, opening steps would have to be withdrawn if the incidence rose to over 100 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants in seven days.
"Lower Saxony will pull the emergency brake that has been decided on, and I advise everyone to do the same," said Weil.
Lauterbach speaks about curfew as an »ultima ratio«
6.11 a.m.:
The SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach does not consider a night curfew to contain the pandemic to be absolutely necessary.
If the number of cases continues to rise rapidly, however, it is unlikely to be avoidable, warned the trained epidemiologist on "Bild live".
The reason for this is that the spreading corona mutation B.1.1.7, viewed over a month, is "four to eight times as contagious" as the previous virus.
"So far, no country has managed to get the much faster pandemic with this mutation under control without there being exit restrictions in lockdown," said Lauterbach.
Nevertheless, it must be clear: "Exit restrictions are the last resort, you have to try to prevent that."
The only chance to do this is offered by a "very strict test concept" with two tests per week in all schools and companies.
The capacities for this are being "built up feverishly."
More than 3000 people are in intensive care units with Covid
6:05 a.m
.:
After the first cautious easing of the pandemic, the number of corona patients in Germany's intensive care units has risen again.
With more than 3000 occupied beds, the load is currently again as high as at the peak times in the first wave in spring 2020. This can be found in the register of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (Divi).
“We are now starting the third wave in the intensive care units and at a very high level.
We had already warned of this at the end of February and we are very concerned about that, "said Divi President Gernot Marx.
According to Divi data, 3056 Covid 19 patients were treated in German intensive care units on Sunday.
"We expect a rapid increase in the number of patients in the next few weeks, as the wave of intensive care patients always follows the wave of infections for two to three weeks," he added.
The numbers can therefore only be changed from mid-April.
With incidences of around 200 infections in seven days per 100,000 inhabitants, emergency doctors are forecasting around 5,000 Covid patients in intensive care units at the beginning of May.
That would be almost as many as at the height of the second wave at the beginning of January and could again put a heavy burden on many clinics.
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bah / vet / mas / nck / mjm / dpa / AFP / AP / Reuters
