Corona in Germany: the seven-day incidence jumps to over 300

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Treatment of corona patient in Hessen

Photo: Daniel Cole / dpa

The incidence of new corona infections in Germany has risen sharply again.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the

on Friday morning as

.

The day before it was 285.9, a week ago it was 214.9.

The value quantifies the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants over a period of seven days.

The incidence is again as high as it was last before Christmas.

As the RKI further announced, citing data from the health authorities,

were recorded within 24 hours.

It was the third day in a row with more than 50,000 new infections.

A week ago it was 41,270, on Thursday morning the RKI reported 64,340.

In addition,

related to the coronavirus were counted.

According to the latest information from the RKI, the health authorities have recorded a total of 7,417,995 cases of infection since the start of the pandemic.

The total number of registered corona deaths in Germany rose to 113,632.

The institute put the number of people recovered from illness caused by the coronavirus in Germany at around 6,664,800.

The RKI has removed the warning that fewer tests and reports were expected during the holidays and at the turn of the year.

It had previously been said that the RKI numbers probably did not provide a complete picture of the infection situation in Germany.

In November, the federal and state governments set the so-called hospitalization incidence as the decisive yardstick for tightening the corona measures.

This value indicates how many people per 100,000 inhabitants are in hospital within seven days because of a corona infection.

According to the latest RKI report from Thursday, the

nationwide

.

Spread of the Omikron variant also in Germany

In addition to the current figures, the RKI also presented its weekly report.

It explains, among other things, that Omikron's share of the infection rate in Germany is increasing rapidly.

In calendar week 52 (until January 2), according to reporting data from the federal states, 44.3 percent of the corona evidence examined for variants was due to Omikron, as the RKI wrote.

A week earlier, the value was given as 15.8 percent.

The counting includes both evidence by genetic analysis (whole genome sequencing) and suspected cases based on so-called variant-specific PCR tests.

RKI warns of overloading the health system

"Current events in Germany are increasingly determined by the worrying variant Omikron," writes the RKI.

The proportion of the delta variant, which until a few weeks ago almost exclusively dominated the infection process, is steadily decreasing.

The so-called random sample data are more meaningful, even if less up-to-date than the reporting data.

Only complete genome sequences from randomly selected samples are included here.

According to the RKI, the Omikron share in calendar week 51 (until December 26th) was 20 percent compared to nine percent in the previous week.

The RKI also warns that the more contagious Omikron variant "can lead to a sudden increase in the number of infections and a rapid overload of the health system and possibly other areas of care".

jok / AFP