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Runny nose, cough, fever: Many people have an infection for this time of year (symbolic image)
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The nationwide seven-day incidence has increased slightly again: According to the Robert Koch Institute, the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week is now 699.5.
It was 690.6 the day before and 682.7 a week ago.
However, the incidence does not provide a complete picture of the infection situation.
Experts have been assuming for some time that there will be a large number of cases that are not recorded by the RKI - mainly because by far not all infected people have a PCR test done.
However, only positive PCR tests count in the statistics.
In addition, late registrations or transmission problems can lead to a distortion of individual daily values.
The health authorities in Germany recently reported 117,732 new corona infections and 131 deaths within one day to the RKI.
Here, too, comparisons of the data are only possible to a limited extent due to the test behavior, late registrations or transmission problems.
In general, the number of registered new infections and deaths varies significantly from weekday to weekday, since many federal states do not transmit them to the RKI, especially at weekends, and report their cases later in the week.
The RKI still does not see an increasing severity of the disease due to the currently particularly widespread corona variant in Germany: There is no evidence that the now dominant omicron subline BA.5 itself causes more severe courses or is more deadly than previous variants, writes the institute in Covid -19-week report from Thursday evening.
Nevertheless, “due to the sharp increase in cases of infection alone”, a correspondingly higher number of severe courses can be observed, which leads to more hospital admissions.
"The number of deaths is increasing in connection with the high number of infections and late registrations, but only slightly so far."
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According to the RKI data, BA.5 is still responsible for the majority of corona infections in Germany.
In the most recent sample examined from the week before last, it already accounted for 77 percent, after around 65 percent the week before.
The proportion is now likely to be even higher.
In the case of the other Omikron sub-line BA.4, which had recently also increased from week to week, a slightly declining trend can now be seen: the share fell from 7.5 to 6.7 percent.
The remaining cases still belong to the previously dominant subline BA.2.
Overall, the RKI speaks of more acute respiratory diseases in the population for this time of year compared to years before the pandemic.
For the past week, 1.2 million visits to the doctor for this reason and 4.5 million cases were assumed, it said.
"These values are significantly higher than the values in the summer of pre-pandemic years and indicate a stronger incidence of infection due to acute respiratory infections."
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According to random virological studies, it is mainly Sars-CoV-2 that is behind it in adults, while other pathogens are the main cause in children, it said.
Parainfluenza and rhinoviruses were mentioned.
In previous reports, the RKI had spoken of an increased activity of respiratory diseases for the time of year.
The RKI did not provide any information on possible reasons.
Experts had spoken of catch-up effects in the past.
At the height of the pandemic, many pathogens were observed less frequently.
The Frankfurt virologist Sandra Ciesek also pointed out on Twitter that diagnostics is currently showing a colorful picture of pathogens.
If you have symptoms and a PCR test for Sars-CoV-2 is negative, “then it is very likely that you are infected with another pathogen”.
Of course, there are false negatives, but they are rare.
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As in a previously published, new vaccination report on Thursday, the RKI also underlined the benefits of the corona vaccination in the weekly report: "Due to its high protective effect against a severe course, even in diseases caused by the omicron variant, it has not lost its importance".
The vaccination report pointed out, among other things, that millions of people in Germany needed to close vaccination gaps.
According to this, around 1.3 million people aged 60 and over and around 7.9 million aged 18-59 would have to refresh their vaccination protection with at least one vaccination.
According to the report, around 7.3 million adults under the age of 60 and 1.9 million over the age of 60 had not received a vaccination at all.
The General Practitioners Association called on the federal government to start a new vaccination campaign.
Vaccination is and will remain the most important and effective measure in the fight against the corona virus, said Ulrich Weigeldt, chairman of the association, to the editorial network Germany.
"We therefore need a positive vaccination campaign - not only for the fourth vaccination, but also to close the vaccination gaps for the first and third vaccinations," said Weigeldt.
mar/dpa
