Status: 08/31/2021 1:11 p.m.
The cabinet has approved Health Minister Spahn’s proposal to assess the pandemic using new indicators. In future, the main benchmark will no longer be the seven-day incidence, but the hospitalization rate.
The Federal Cabinet has initiated the revision of the Infection Protection Act. The seven-day incidence is no longer supposed to be the deciding factor in dealing with the pandemic. Instead, it emerges from the proposed formulation that in particular the number of corona patients admitted to regional clinics per 100,000 inhabitants within seven days is an “essential benchmark” for protective measures to be taken.
As the proposal goes on to say, “further indicators” should be taken into account in addition to the hospital admissions when assessing the occurrence of the infection. The number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants in seven days, the available intensive capacities and the number of people vaccinated are named – differentiated according to age groups. The state governments should then be able to set threshold values for all the indicators listed, taking into account the respective inpatient supply capacities.
Spahn appeals to federal states
Health Minister Jens Spahn had submitted the proposal for new indicators to assess the corona situation. “The fewer people have to be treated in the hospital for Covid, the more freedom is possible,” he told the newspapers of the Funke media group. The federal states should base their pandemic policies on this principle in future. “If the vaccination rate is high, the incidence does not become superfluous, but it becomes less meaningful.”
The formulation aid for the coalition factions of the Union and SPD is now to be discussed further in the Bundestag and is expected to be decided in the coming week. The background to this is that the number of new infections (incidence), which has so far been used as a central indicator, no longer has such a direct impact on the hospital burden in view of the progress made in vaccination.