According to the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko), people under 30 will only be vaccinated against Corona with the vaccine from Biontech / Pfizer (called “Comirnaty”) in the future. Current reporting analyzes showed that heart muscle and pericardial inflammation were observed more frequently in boys and young men as well as in girls and young women after vaccination with Moderna (“Spikevax”) than after the Biontech vaccination. The Stiko announced on Wednesday. The Covid-19 vaccination recommendation will be updated accordingly.
The draft resolution had gone to expert groups and federal states for a vote. Changes are therefore still possible. According to the safety reports available so far, the course of the heart muscle and pericardial inflammation is “predominantly mild”, writes the Stiko.
For over 30-year-olds, however, there is no increased risk of heart muscle and pericarditis after vaccination with Spikevax. Pregnant women should be offered vaccination regardless of age. (11/10/2021)
Incidence rises to a new high
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reports 39,676 new positive tests, the highest daily value since the beginning of the pandemic. That is 5,727 more than on Wednesday a week ago, when 33,949 new infections were reported. The seven-day incidence increases significantly to 232.1 from 213.7 the previous day. The value indicates how many people per 100,000 inhabitants have contracted the coronavirus in the past seven days. 236 other people died related to the virus. This increases the number of reported deaths within 24 hours to 96,963. (11/10/2021)
Call for nationwide 2-G regulation is getting louder
In view of the worsening corona situation, calls for nationwide restrictions for unvaccinated people are increasing. For example, left-wing parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch and the Marburger Bund doctors’ union advocated a nationwide 2-G regulation – i.e. access to events only for those who have been vaccinated or those who have recovered. SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil spoke out in favor of stricter controls on measures, especially in the catering sector. “It must be clear: If you do not adhere to the checking of the 3-G or 2-G certificates as the operator, you have to feel the consequences,” he said Rheinische Post.
Left parliamentary group leader Bartsch told the German press agency that it was a matter of weighing up the interests and the question of what the greater encroachment on fundamental rights was – “a renewed lockdown with catastrophic consequences, especially for children and families, or a nationwide applicable 2-G model”. The corona situation is out of control again. When it comes to the basic question of fighting a pandemic, there should be no patchwork or false considerations.
The SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach once again called for the widespread use of 2 G. “We need either a lockdown or a 2-G rule, and there will no longer be a lockdown,” he told the editorial network Germany. A nationwide introduction of the 2-G rule could not be enforced in the federal government without the federal states. “I therefore advise every state government to introduce 2 G.” He wanted them “in all areas except basic services”.
According to the RND, the Marburger Bund warned: “If we don’t introduce a nationwide 2-G rule, that would be the next mistake in fighting pandemic.” NRW Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) also advocated a nationwide 2-G regulation in the leisure sector on Tuesday. The parties to the possible future traffic light coalition – the SPD, the Greens and the FDP – in their draft law for the future nationwide Corona regulations allow the federal states to decide whether they will order 3-G or 2-G rules. Some countries have already enacted 2G regulations. In addition to those who have been vaccinated and recovered, those who have tested negative also have access to the 3-G rules. (11/10/2021)
Drosten believes new contact restrictions are conceivable
The virologist Christian Drosten expects “a very stressful winter” in the corona pandemic and also believes that new contact restrictions are conceivable. “We now have a real emergency situation at the moment,” said the head of virology in the Berlin Charité in view of the situation in the intensive care units in the NDR podcast “The Coronavirus Update” https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/. ” We have to do something right now. “
One must also discuss measures “that we actually hoped to have behind us,” said Drosten. “So we now probably have to control the infection activity again by means of contact measures – not likely, but definitely.” However, he also restricted the fact that it could be legally difficult to enforce broad, general contact measures.
“You could rely on the booster vaccinations instead of contact limits,” said Drosten. “That’s something I really believe in too.” However, it doesn’t go that fast. First you have to vaccinate the elders for the third time to prevent deaths. For younger people, the booster is “a lifeline for protection against transmission”. In the long term, the “ideal” goal must be “a population that has been completely vaccinated three times over”.
3 G – i.e. access for vaccinated, convalescent and tested people – is not enough, in Drosten’s assessment, to sufficiently reduce the number of infections. The motto is: “Testing does not protect against infection.” Those who have not been vaccinated and go to an event or work with a negative test can become infected there because people who have been vaccinated can pass the virus on. Although 2 G closes the “back door” of the test option, it has the disadvantage that the contacts are shifted to private life. Since vaccinated people can also pass the pathogen on, “the virus will simply come home to them”.
The proposal to test vaccinated and unvaccinated people on a regular basis is “logistically impossible”. To offer tests again free of charge is in principle not wrong, but it is “put out as an emergency brake, and it will not be under any circumstances”. You have to make it clear to the population that “it is very serious at the moment,” said Drosten. “We are in a bad situation: we have 15 million people who could and should have been vaccinated.” The way out of the pandemic is clear: “We have to close the vaccination gaps.” (11/10/2021)
Intensive care physicians increasingly expect postponements of predictable operations
The intensive care physician Christian Karagiannidis expects the worsening corona situation that more and more hospitals will restrict regular operations again. “We will hardly be able to avoid it,” said the scientific director of the intensive care register of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive and Emergency Medicine (Divi) in the ARD “Tagesthemen”. He referred this particularly to badly affected federal states such as Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia.
Restricting regular operations means “that we really postpone operations that can be postponed because they are not life-threatening or because they are not tumors and redeploy the staff within the hospital,” said Karagiannidis. The Berlin Charité-Universitätsmedizin has been canceling all plannable interventions since Tuesday in order to increasingly deploy employees in Covid-19 wards.
Karagiannidis explained that about ten percent of intensive care beds in Germany are currently still free. That is relatively little, because an intensive care unit consists of an average of twelve beds – and therefore usually only a single bed is free “for all emergencies that are not just Covid” https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/. “And at the moment when we regionally drop below five percent free beds, we are in principle no longer able to act in the clinics.” That will “happen to us relatively quickly in the next few weeks and, above all, months (…) at least in the hotspots that we have now – Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia.”
In order to curb the current increase in the number of corona cases, Karagiannidis called for “2 G and also 3 G in the workplace” – it was seen in the European surrounding area that this had an effect on the first vaccination rate. He also spoke out in favor of booster vaccinations, initially for the elderly, but then also for the younger ones. (11/10/2021)