Corona autumn
Lauterbach: “Corona autumn will not be a bed of roses”
The corona numbers could continue to rise in autumn. photo
© Sina Schuldt/dpa
The numbers are currently falling, but the autumn wave is imminent: Minister of Health Lauterbach is concerned about the high number of deaths.
Health Minister Karl Lauterbach believes that Germany is facing difficult times due to the increasing number of corona in autumn. With the omicron subvariant BA.5, at least at the beginning of autumn, there will be an increase in the number of cases, the SPD politician told the “Welt am Sonntag”. “There will then be failures in the companies and the critical infrastructure, for example in hospitals. So we are facing difficult times.” This is particularly the case when staying indoors becomes the norm because of the cold temperatures.
There are already between 100 and 150 corona deaths per day. “My concern is that that number could go up.” That is not justifiable. So you have to be well prepared. “And it will be us if the Bundestag decides on the proposed amendments to the Infection Protection Act,” said the minister.
RKI: 101 corona deaths in one day
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the nationwide seven-day incidence on Saturday morning as 260.3. This emerges from figures that reflect the status of the RKI dashboard at 5:25 a.m. The day before, the value of new corona infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week was 263.6 (previous week: 302.9; previous month: 652.0). However, this information only provides a very incomplete picture of the number of infections. Experts have been assuming for some time that there will be a large number of cases not recorded by the RKI – mainly because not all infected people have a PCR test done. Only positive PCR tests count in the statistics. In addition, late registrations or transmission problems can lead to the distortion of individual daily values.
The health authorities in Germany recently reported 33,226 new corona infections (previous week: 36,295) and 101 deaths (previous week: 121) to the RKI within one day. Here, too, comparisons of the data are only possible to a limited extent due to the test behavior, late registrations and 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.
How does the virus develop?
Lauterbach hopes for a Corona autumn without a serious virus variant change. If there is no variant change, then Germany will not get into an epidemic situation. “Nevertheless, we need tools for emergencies,” said Lauterbach. “The Corona autumn will not be a bed of roses.”
Many people wrongly believed that during a pandemic only the lighter variants prevailed. “That is a mistake.” There is no selective advantage for lighter variants. “We have to be prepared for anything.” The virus has changed too much through mutations and is still doing it. That is why the endemic stage has not yet been reached.
In addition, the health minister is demanding more research funding for the development of nasal vaccines that can be sprayed to provide immunity to the mucous membranes. “In an international comparison, Germany is not doing well when it comes to working on these vaccines,” he said. There is a lack of research funds. The vaccines for the nose could potentially significantly reduce infection.