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Daniela Behrens, Minister of Health in Lower Saxony
Photo: Friso Gentsch / dpa
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Finland lifts some corona restrictions ahead of schedule
5:02 a.m .:
Finland wants to lift some of the corona restrictions early because of the easing pressure on the health system.
"The burden on hospitals is still high, but the most severe cases are declining and there has been a turn for the better in intensive care units," Health Minister Hanna Sarkkinen wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
From February 1st, the restrictions on events and companies will therefore be relaxed.
As in the rest of Europe, new infections in Finland had recently increased significantly.
Last week, the government therefore extended a number of restrictions, including shorter opening hours for restaurants and bars and upper limits for participants in public gatherings.
At the time, Prime Minister Sanna Marin assumed that most of the restrictions would remain in place until mid-February.
But from the beginning of the month, restaurants can now remain open until 9 p.m. instead of 6 p.m.
Bars, on the other hand, still have to close at 6 p.m.
Restrictions should also be lifted for cultural and sporting events, which the authorities have certified as having a low risk of infection.
On Thursday, the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare reported around 52,000 new Covid-19 cases in the past week.
The week before it was 57,000.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, 470,665 confirmed corona cases and 1,973 deaths related to the virus have been registered in Finland.
With its announcement, the Finnish government follows the neighboring country Denmark, which wants to end almost all corona measures on February 1st.
RKI reports 190,148 new infections - incidence rises to 1073
4:14 a.m .:
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reports 190,148 positive tests within 24 hours.
That is 49,988 more cases than on Friday a week ago, when 140,160 new infections were reported.
The nationwide seven-day incidence rises to a new high of 1073.0 compared to 1017.4 the previous day.
170 people died in connection with the virus.
This increases the number of reported deaths to 117,484.
So far, more than 9.42 million corona tests have been positive in Germany.
Read the whole message here.
Morocco will reopen airspace on February 7th
4:02 a.m .:
Morocco wants to reopen its airspace for international flights from February 7th.
This is reported by the state news agency MAP.
The country banned all international passenger flights in November over concerns about the spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.
Intensive care physicians warn of increasing patient numbers
3:47 a.m .:
Intensive care physicians have warned of the increasing number of patients due to the omicron variant of the corona virus.
The President of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI), Gernot Marx, told the Rheinische Post that, in view of the “very high incidences”, he expects “the general number of patients to increase significantly again can and certainly will«.
The number of Covid patients in the normal wards is also “very, very high,” Marx said.
"Of course, this also affects the entire clinic." An infection with the omicron variant is often milder than with the delta variant, but: "We are not talking about a cold here," emphasized Marx.
»There will be serious courses and also deaths.«
The head of the German Hospital Society, Gerald Gass, also expected an increasing number of corona patients from Omikron.
"As the infection rate increases, the number of occupancy in the hospital will increase with a time lag," he told the "Rheinische Post".
"On the other hand, we don't expect normal wards to be full, since they have completely different personnel and technical conditions than intensive care units, which have been heavily used for a long time." the situation can get tense again,” he warned.
Australia approves booster vaccine for 16 and 17 year olds
3:35 a.m.:
Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) approves booster shots for 16- and 17-year-olds to better protect against the spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.
As the TGA reports, the booster vaccination with the vaccine from Pfizer and Biontech has been approved for this age group.
It joins the USA, Israel and Great Britain.
Christian Dürr: Discuss opening prospects now
3:16 a.m .:
FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr has called for a quick discussion about opening prospects in the corona crisis.
"In any case, we have to start talking about opening prospects now," Dürr told the editorial network Germany (RND).
"In the case of Omikron, unlike previous corona waves, the decisive factor is no longer the incidence, but the question of how heavily burdened the health system is." Dürr said: "If liberty interventions are no longer necessary, we must withdraw them immediately."
Thuringia wants to address
corona
protests again at the conference of interior ministers
2.49 a.m .:
Thuringia’s Interior Minister Georg Maier (SPD) wants to use the first meeting of the state interior ministers with the new Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) on Friday in Stuttgart to talk about the corona protests.
He will address the "corona denier problem very urgently," he told the newspapers of the editorial network Germany (RND).
»It is really worrying what is happening here in East Germany.
The flow is uninterrupted.«
The protests have been occupying the interior ministers, who are meeting for the first time on Friday under the Bavarian presidency, for a long time.
Riots during the so-called "walks" are reported almost every Monday, especially from East Germany.
Politicians, but also journalists and scientists are regularly threatened.
Actress Caroline Peters praises Austria
's Corona
policy
2:06 a.m .:
Actress Caroline Peters finds the corona policy in her Austrian adopted home more pragmatic than in Germany.
"They act first, and if it turns out to be bad, they change it and do something else," said the Mainz native of the "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung" (NOZ).
"In Germany, everything has to be perfect when you do it - that's why it takes a year before anything happens at all," added Peters, who became known to a wide audience as an investigator for the successful ARD series "Mord mit Aussicht".
She is also a member of the ensemble of the renowned Burgtheater in Vienna and lives in the Austrian capital.
Peters sees “the uninterrupted appointment Tetris” as the greatest impact of the corona pandemic on her own life and explained: “Everything is constantly different than planned, something is constantly being postponed, planned again and then postponed again and planned again.
(...) I have the feeling that I've been playing Tetris for two years and in between I do my work to relax.«
US politician Palin eats in a restaurant after positive
corona
tests
1:20 a.m .:
Shortly after several positive corona tests, US politician Sarah Palin was spotted in a New York restaurant.
As several US media reported unanimously on Thursday, she violated the corona rules in the US east coast metropolis.
Although Palin was sitting outside the restaurant in the posh Upper East Side on Wednesday, he should really be isolating himself from other people.
Read the full announcement here.
Increase in tax revenue after
Corona
low 2020
12:35 a.m .:
The tax revenue of the federal, state and local governments increased significantly again last year after the Corona low in 2020.
According to the Ministry of Finance, the state took a total of 761 billion euros in taxes.
That is 11.5 percent more than in the previous year.
Despite the ongoing pandemic, slightly more tax revenue came in than in the pre-crisis year of 2019 (735.9 billion).
In 2020, the corona pandemic led to a significant slump in economic output and thus also in tax revenue, but according to the Ministry of Finance, a noticeable economic recovery began in spring 2021.
Above all, revenue from community taxes, such as wage and income tax and sales tax, rose again significantly by more than 80 percent.
cop/AFP/dpa/Reuters