The seven-day incidence continues to rise. According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) on Sunday morning, it was 35.0 – the previous day the value was 32.7, a week ago it was 22.6. The health authorities in Germany reported 4728 new corona infections to the RKI within one day. This is evident from the numbers from Sunday morning, which reflect the status of the RKI dashboard at 4:01 a.m. A week ago, the value for Germany was 3127 infections.
According to the new information, three deaths were recorded across Germany within 24 hours. There were four deaths a week ago. The RKI has counted 3,821,013 detected infections with Sars-CoV-2 since the beginning of the pandemic. The actual total number is likely to be significantly higher, as many infections are not detected.
The RKI stated the number of those who had recovered at 3,679,500. The number of people who died with or with a proven infection with Sars-CoV-2 rose to 91,867. (08/15/2021)
Survey: Vaccination rate could rise to over 80 percent in adults
According to a survey, the proportion of adults fully vaccinated against Corona in Germany could rise to more than 80 percent. In the representative survey of the YouGov opinion research institute on behalf of the German Press Agency, 75 percent of the 2106 participants said that they had already been vaccinated at least once. Another 6 percent said they would still like to be vaccinated – together that’s 81 percent. In May, this rate was only 74 percent in a comparable survey. Shortly before the start of the vaccination campaign in December 2020, only 65 percent had decided to vaccinate.
In the current survey, only 13 percent said they did not want to be vaccinated – in May it was 15 percent. Six percent have not yet made a decision.
Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) said last Monday that she hoped for a vaccination rate “well over 70 percent and up to 80 percent”. But she related that to the total population. No vaccine is yet approved for children under 12 years of age. The Standing Vaccination Commission has not yet issued a general vaccination recommendation for children and adolescents between 12 and 17 years of age. According to official figures, 63.1 percent of the total population has been vaccinated at least once. (08/15/2021)
Medical representatives for PCR tests on infected vaccinated persons
The Robert Koch Institute has the support of medical representatives for its demand to test infected vaccinated people using the PCR method even if they only show mild symptoms. Both the chairman of the Association of General Practitioners, Ulrich Weigeldt, and the head of the German Medical Association, Klaus Reinhardt, spoke out in favor of the German editorial network.
“As the number of infections rises, there will inevitably be more cases in which vaccinated people become infected,” said Reinhardt. “We therefore need valid information on the reasons. Where do vaccination breakthroughs occur, with which vaccines do they occur above all and which pre-existing diseases may promote them?” This could help to further increase the effectiveness of the vaccines and adapt them to virus variants.
The RKI made the request because the number of tests in doctors’ offices has fallen sharply in recent weeks. At the same time, the proportion of positive findings is increasing. (08/14/2021)
Report: 150,000 violations of mandatory reporting upon entry
Since mid-January, the federal police have identified a little more than 150,000 violations of the obligation to register when entering from corona risk areas. According to media reports, the authority announced this to the editorial network Germany upon request. Almost 132,000 of these violations were found during controls on entry by land.
Since the introduction of mandatory registration in November 2020, the federal police have also carried out spot checks to check compliance at airports. According to this, around 24,500 deficiencies were found in almost 186,000 controls – i.e. missing or incorrect registrations. (08/14/2021)
Turkey becomes a high risk area
Due to the increasing number of corona infections, the federal government classifies Turkey as a high-risk area. As of Tuesday, travelers from the holiday country who have not been vaccinated or recovered will have to be in quarantine for five to ten days, according to the Robert Koch Institute. The USA, Israel, Kenya, Montenegro, Vietnam and two French overseas territories will also be classified as high-risk areas on Sunday. Portugal, on the other hand, is removed from the risk list, with the exception of the Algarve, which is particularly popular with tourists, and the capital Lisbon.
Fully vaccinated and recovered travelers from high-risk areas are exempt from the quarantine obligation. All others have to isolate themselves after entering the country and can only get rid of it after five days with a negative test. Countries and regions with a particularly high risk of infection are classified as high-risk areas. Unlike in the past, it is not just the infection numbers that are decisive. Other criteria are the speed at which the virus is spreading, the burden on the health system in a country or a lack of data on the corona situation.
With the new classifications, there will be almost 70 countries that are classified, in whole or in part, as high-risk areas. Even now, with Spain, southern France and Cyprus, popular holiday areas for Germans are among them. Another top holiday destination is now being added with Turkey. (08/13/2021)
More than 10,000 people affected by the vaccination scandal in Friesland
The number of people affected by the vaccination scandal in the Lower Saxony district of Friesland has risen to 10,183. District Administrator Sven Ambrosy (SPD) said on Friday that the exact times when the accused nurse was on duty had been checked again. So far, the authorities had assumed 8557 people affected. The new numbers have been available since Friday morning. Those affected should be informed later in the day. He deeply regrets that so many people have suffered from the wrongdoing of a single person.
The approximately 40-year-old registered nurse is accused of having exchanged the vaccine for a saline solution in at least six cases at the Schortens-Roffhausen vaccination center in April. According to the investigators, the reason she gave was that she broke an ampoule with the vaccine. For fear of being released, she only filled the syringes with table salt. On Tuesday, the district announced that the investigators could not rule out that the woman had previously used saline only several times. That is why more than 8,500 people would have to be vaccinated. Ambrosy stressed that the authorities are now calling on all vaccinated persons in the period in question to be vaccinated again as part of the security measures. So far, 5047 appointments for follow-up vaccinations have already been assigned. The first vaccinations should be given on Friday. Then between 200 and 400 additional vaccinations per day are planned.
The district was only informed by the police on Thursday afternoon that the nurse, who had been dismissed without notice, claimed that she had not only drawn up table salt in the syringes, said the district administrator. According to her lawyer, she replaced the missing vaccine from the broken bottle with vaccine residues from other ampoules. This new information reinforced the county’s risk assessment, Ambrosy said. As a registered nurse, she should have known that it was forbidden to mix the vaccine with residues from other ampoules. In addition, the mixture is too diluted to ensure a successful vaccination. Ambrosy did not want to assess whether the woman was against vaccination and possibly acted for political reasons. That is the task of the investigative authorities. (08/13/2021)
Intensive care physicians call for a survey on vaccination rates
Intensive care physicians are calling for an independent, representative population survey on the level of vaccination in Germany. “Vaccination is the decisive success factor of the pandemic. We have to do everything to strengthen confidence in the vaccination campaign,” said Gernot Marx, President of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI), the newspapers of the Funke media group. It is therefore important to quickly check the difference reported by the Robert Koch Institute between the official registration numbers and survey data on the vaccination rate of under 60-year-olds by means of an independent, representative survey.
“Reliable figures are the basis for the acceptance of the corona measures,” said Marx. “If the vaccination rate in the group of 18 to 59 year olds is actually much higher than reported, we would have a much more relaxed situation with a view to autumn.”
According to a survey by the RKI, more adults in Germany seem to have been vaccinated at least once than officially recorded so far. The difference to the so-called digital vaccination rate monitoring (DIM), on which the vaccination dashboard is based, was particularly noticeable in the age group of 18 to 59 year olds, according to an RKI report on the survey. While in the survey called Covimo (short for: Covid-19 vaccination rate monitoring) 79 percent of adults under 60 years of age stated that they had been vaccinated at least once, according to the official system it was 59 percent.
FDP General Secretary Volker Wissing told the Funke newspapers that the uncertainty about the actual vaccination rate was “a renewed nuisance in the management of this crisis”. The incidence values and the vaccination rate would have concrete effects on people’s everyday lives. “Now the vaccination quota, which is so important for the population’s herd immunity, is in question because the federal government does not have reliable figures.” (08/12/2021)
So few first vaccinations as last in January
On Tuesday, a total of more than 404,000 vaccinations were carried out nationwide – of which more than 334,800 doses resulted in a complete vaccination. Only about 70,000 people had their first corona vaccination that day. So few first vaccinations on a Tuesday were last given on January 12th. Back then, at the very beginning of the German vaccination campaign, more than 78,000 people were given a vaccine for the first time.
According to the Federal Ministry of Health on Wednesday, just under 46.2 million people or 55.6 percent of the total population are fully vaccinated. 52.1 million people or 62.7 percent of all residents received at least a first dose.
In a comparison of the federal states, Bremen is still at the top with 71.7 percent at least once and 65.2 percent fully vaccinated residents. At the bottom of the list is Saxony with 53.0 percent at least once and 49.1 percent fully vaccinated residents. A total of 95.8 million corona vaccine doses have been administered in Germany since the start of the campaign, which, according to the Federal Ministry of Health’s vaccination dashboard, has now been running for 229 days. (08/11/2021)