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Corona patients in an intensive care unit in Sofia, Bulgaria
Photo: STOYAN NENOV / REUTERS
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Papua New Guinea before the Corona disaster
9:20 a.m.:
According to experts, Papua New Guinea is heading for a corona disaster. The number of infections in the Pacific state has risen dramatically recently - while at the same time less than one percent of the nine million inhabitants are fully vaccinated against the virus. The morgue in Port Moresby General Hospital is now completely overcrowded, Radio New Zealand reported on Tuesday. Around 300 corpses were piled up there, while the premises were only designed for a maximum of 60 dead.
The chief of pandemic control in Papua New Guinea, David Manning, has now allowed a mass burial of 200 bodies to defuse the situation.
The funeral is reportedly scheduled for later this week.
Despite the escalating situation, the authorities did not want to order a lockdown and instead rely on "an effective medical response" and the vaccination campaign, according to the local newspaper "The National" on Tuesday.
However, the health system is extremely weak, and there is also widespread vaccination skepticism, coupled with the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant, said the Red Cross.
Intensive care physicians point to increasing stress on hospitals
9.10 a.m.:
Shortly before the constitution of the new Bundestag, the intensive care physicians point out the increasing corona risk and the increasing burden on hospitals. »We intensive care physicians cannot understand the discussions about a Freedom Day or clear signals to the population that it is“ over ”. Corona is not over. The incidences are rising again, «says the President of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (Divi), Gernot Marx, the newspaper» Rheinische Post «.
“We have an aggressive and very virulent Delta variant - it's almost like a new virus of its own.
And we still have 16 million citizens over the age of 18 who are not vaccinated. «The number of Covid patients in intensive care units has been rising continuously for two weeks.
"It is in no way understandable for all those in the intensive care units or normal wards, for the numerous long-covid patients and especially those who will fall ill in the next few weeks and months, to declare the end of the pandemic." Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) had spoken out in favor of phasing out the pandemic situation.
mfu / AFP / dpa / Reuters
