Status: 04/17/2022 3:20 p.m
Health Minister Lauterbach fears new, more dangerous variants of the corona virus. He wants to prevent new waves in the fall with extensive vaccine orders. The corona incidence continues to fall.
Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach warned of possible new, highly contagious virus variants this year. “Various omicron subvariants are evolving, which I’m concerned about. The intervals at which new variants replace the old ones are becoming shorter and shorter. This means that we are less and less able to prepare for the mutations,” said Lauterbach the “Picture on Sunday”. It is “quite possible that we will get a highly contagious omicron variant that is as deadly as Delta. That would be an absolute killer variant.”
Threatening wave in autumn: a lot of vaccine and mask requirement?
Lauterbach wants to prevent the threat of corona waves in autumn with large-scale vaccine orders. “We’re getting a vaccine that protects against the omicron variants. We’re expecting it in September,” Lauterbach told the newspaper. “We already have a vaccine against delta variants. Our goal is to have enough vaccine for every citizen, no matter which variant comes.”
It could also be that the recently amended Infection Protection Act will have to be revised again in the fall, said Lauterbach. The situation will then change again: “Then the cases will increase, then there will probably be new mutations, or the number of cases with omicron infections will increase sharply.” For example, it could be necessary again to make wearing a mask compulsory again indoors.
Patient protectors: Negotiate with the FDP now
Against this background, the board member of the German Foundation for Patient Protection, Eugen Brysch, called on Lauterbach to hold rapid talks with the FDP. If he wants to revise the Infection Protection Act, the minister should “start convincing the liberal coalition partner now,” said Brysch. “In the past he waited until the end. The result is currently a legal regulation that offers little protection.”
incidence continues to fall
Meanwhile, the nationwide seven-day incidence has continued to fall. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the value of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants per week as 834.3. For comparison: the day before the value was 876.5. A week ago, the nationwide incidence was 1097.9 and in the previous month it was 1651.4.
The health authorities in Germany reported 39,784 new corona infections to the RKI within one day. A week ago there were 55,471 registered infections. When considering the values, it must be taken into account that individual states do not report data every weekday, and at weekends, for example, Baden-Württemberg, Lower Saxony, Brandenburg and Saxony do not, or only partially, report data. Fewer reports are also to be expected on public holidays. This in turn leads to late registrations on the following days.
A comparison of daily values is therefore becoming increasingly difficult. In addition, experts have been assuming for some time that there will be a large number of cases not recorded by the RKI – due to overworked health authorities and because not all infected people have a PCR test done. Only these count in the statistics.
13 new deaths
According to the new information, 13 deaths were recorded across Germany within 24 hours. A week ago there were 36 deaths. This increased the number of people who died from or involved a proven infection with Sars-CoV-2 to 132,942.
The number of patients infected with corona admitted to clinics per 100,000 inhabitants within seven days was 6.41 on Thursday (Wednesday: 6.49). Here, too, there are days with incomplete reports. The value also includes many people with a positive corona test who have another main illness.
The RKI has counted 23,416,663 proven infections with Sars-CoV-2 since the beginning of the pandemic. The actual total number is likely to be significantly higher, as many infections go undetected.