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Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach with FFP2 mask (archive image)
Photo: Kay Nietfeld / dpa
In view of the sharp increase in corona cases, Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) has asked for masks to be worn indoors voluntarily.
"A summer wave was to be expected," Lauterbach wrote on Twitter.
Wearing a mask indoors and a fourth vaccination are “the best antidotes”.
The seven-day incidence of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants has been increasing for days.
From Monday to Tuesday it jumped from 331.8 to 447.3.
105,840 new corona cases were counted.
107 people died within 24 hours in connection with the corona virus.
According to the weekly report from the Robert Koch Institute last Thursday, the omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 in particular have recently recorded strong growth.
In both cases, the proportion doubled: for BA.4 to 2.1 percent and for BA.5 to ten percent.
"The fourth vaccination protects against serious illness and reduces the risk of infection for a few months, albeit incompletely," Lauterbach wrote on Twitter.
»Now that helps a lot.«
According to the Federal Ministry of Health, 5.2 million people in Germany have received a second booster vaccination so far.
This is 6.3 percent of the population.
Vaccinations as prevention
The health ministers of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse have also emphatically advocated a corona vaccination.
Vaccinations are highly effective tools to prevent serious illnesses or deaths, said Hesse Minister Kai Klose (Greens) at the national vaccination conference in Wiesbaden.
The past few years in particular have shown how important vaccination rates are in the population.
This does not only apply to a vaccination to protect against a corona infection.
However, the pandemic has once again shown the importance of vaccination as prevention, said Klose.
Vaccination is and will remain the way out of the pandemic, stressed the Rhineland-Palatinate Minister of Health Clemens Hoch (SPD).
Vaccinations are among the most successful preventive measures in medicine.
It must be achieved that the vaccination card check at the family doctor becomes routine.
The two health ministers expect that the corona vaccine adapted to the omicron variant could be approved in September.
However, the results of the study would have to be awaited.
kry/AFP/dpa