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Corona test in Lower Saxony
Photo: Julian Stratenschulte / dpa
The incidence of new corona infections in Germany has again reached a high.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the seven-day incidence on Saturday morning as 1127.7.
On Friday the value was still 1073.0, on Saturday last week it was 772.7.
The incidence quantifies the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants over a period of seven days.
As the RKI announced, citing data from the health authorities, the number of new infections within 24 hours on Saturday morning was 189,166 – after 190,148 on Friday and 135,461 on Saturday last week.
As the RKI further announced, 182 new deaths in connection with the corona virus were also counted on Saturday.
According to the RKI, the health authorities have recorded a total of 9,618,245 cases of infection since the beginning of the pandemic.
The total number of registered corona deaths in Germany is now 117,666.
The RKI puts the number of people in Germany who have recovered from an illness caused by the coronavirus at around 7,532,600.
In November, the federal and state governments had defined the so-called hospitalization incidence as the decisive benchmark for tightening or relaxing the corona measures.
This value indicates how many people per 100,000 inhabitants are in the hospital within seven days because of a corona infection.
According to the latest RKI report on Friday, the hospitalization incidence nationwide was 4.72.
After a few weeks of stagnation, the value has recently picked up again significantly.
Habeck
holds out the prospect of extending
Corona aid
In view of the spread of the omicron variant, Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) is proposing an extension of the corona aid.
“I hope that by the end of March we will be in a different situation.
However, should it be necessary to extend the aid again in order to ensure the survival of hard-hit companies, then we in the federal government will provide the funds for this," Habeck told the newspapers of the Funke media group.
According to Habeck, the current aid has got off to a good start.
The first partial payments - so-called advance payments - have been flowing since January 18 and have arrived in the accounts of those affected.
Since January 7, 4370 applications for bridging aid IV with a volume of around 222 million euros have been made, as reported by the Funke newspapers, citing the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
With the bridging aid IV, companies that continue to be severely affected by the corona pandemic will receive state support for the period from January to March.
The money does not have to be paid back.
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According to the report, there are also 28,847 applications for restart aid with a funding volume of 130 million euros.
Restart Assistance is a self-employed program.
You can get up to 1500 euros per month from the state, so a total of 4500 euros.
According to the Funke newspapers, around half of all applications come from the three federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria and Hesse, and more than half of the applications come from the catering and hotel sectors.
Habeck's ministry has eased access to economic aid.
Companies can claim bridging aid IV in January and February even if they close temporarily.
Drops in sales are recognized if maintaining business operations would be uneconomical due to the corona restrictions.
"Then these companies can receive bridging aid IV if there is a drop in sales of at least 30 percent," according to Funke from the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Habeck noted that the rapid spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus is a new stress test for many companies and their employees.
"We are therefore continuing to provide support with the Corona economic aid."
cop/AFP