The seven-day incidence has continued to rise. According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) on Saturday morning, it was 32.7 – the previous day the value was 30.1, a week ago it was 21.2. The health authorities in Germany reported 5644 new corona infections to the RKI within one day. This is evident from the numbers from Saturday morning, which reflect the status of the RKI dashboard at 4:27 a.m. A week ago, the value for Germany was 3206 infections.
According to the new information, 11 deaths were recorded across Germany within 24 hours. A week ago there were 24 deaths. The RKI has counted 3,816,285 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 3,677,800. The number of people who died with or with a proven infection with Sars-CoV-2 rose to 91,864.
The incidence has so far been the basis for many corona restrictions in the pandemic, for example as part of the federal emergency brake that expired at the end of June. In the future, other values such as hospital admissions are to be taken into account to a greater extent. There was no agreement on common, new parameters at the Prime Minister’s Conference (MPK) last Tuesday that could serve as a basis for new restrictions or easing.
The next day, however, Baden-Württemberg decided to delete the so-called seven-day incidence from the state’s Corona regulation. From Monday onwards it no longer plays a role there. At the same time, Lower Saxony announced that it would include other assessment criteria in its Corona regulation in addition to the incidence, such as the occupancy of the hospitals. Other federal states want to follow suit. (14.8.2021)
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 checks 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. (14.8.2021)
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. (13.8.)
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. Anyone else affected should be informed during the course of 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 exchanging 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 emphasized 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 used vaccine residues from other ampoules to replace the missing vaccine from the broken bottle. This new information reaffirmed 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 information 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)