Pandemic
Fewer corona tests, but more cases: Germany is heading for a difficult autumn
The number of rapid corona tests is decreasing, but the incidence is increasing in Germany
© Christophe Gateau / DPA
The corona numbers in Germany are higher than in the past two summers – the infections have probably not been recorded correctly for a long time. Doctor representatives criticize the current corona policy.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the nationwide seven-day incidence on Wednesday morning at 691.8. This is evident from figures showing the status of the RKI dashboards play from 5 o’clock. The day before, the value of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week was 702.4 (previous week: 678.8; previous month: 331.8). That is significantly more than all the incidence values of the corona summers 2020 and 2021 – and the incidence does not even provide a complete picture of the infection situation at the moment.
“The infection process has not been adequately recorded for a long time,” said Andreas Bobrowski, chairman of the Professional Association of German Laboratory Doctors (BDL), on Tuesday. Because “all too often” a positive antigen test is not followed by a PCR test. The BDL therefore points out that people with a positive rapid corona test are entitled to a confirmatory PCR test. This is not known to parts of the population, so the corona statistics cannot reflect the true extent of the pandemic, according to Bobrowski. Because only positive PCR tests count in the statistics.
Decline in rapid corona tests, but more PCR tests
The BDL expects that further commercial test centers will close over the summer due to declining demand for the so-called citizen tests. According to the association, the citizen tests have fallen by 20 to 30 percent since they were restricted at the end of last month.
In contrast, the Professional Association of Accredited Medical Laboratories in Germany (ALM eV) reports increasing numbers of PCR tests for the period from June 27th to July 10th. During that time, the labs performed 867,349 PCR tests. “Compared to the previous week, both the total number of tests requested increased by another 3 percent and the number of tests found positive increased by 4 percent,” writes ALM in a press release.
Criticism of compromise on citizen tests
At the beginning of July, Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) and the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians had agreed on a compromise for the new citizen tests. Accordingly, the associations of statutory health insurance physicians will continue to receive the statements from the test centers and make payments. The data is then passed on to the federal government, which checks the plausibility of the tests and results and reports any anomalies to the municipal regulatory authorities.
Last Friday, Bundestag Vice President Katrin Göring-Eckardt spoke out in favor of reconsidering the new cost regulation for the corona tests. “We have to look at this test question again,” said the Green politician on Deutschlandfunk on Thursday. “It shouldn’t depend on the wallet whether I get tested or not.” The point is that people with little money and socially disadvantaged children can continue to be tested, she said and obviously meant: they could continue to be tested free of charge.
Lauterbach disagrees because of contamination
Lauterbach (SPD) defends itself against allegations that the government is doing too little against the spread of the corona virus and serious illnesses. Many citizens wondered whether an infection was coming through the back door, the minister wrote on Twitter on Saturday. “No,” he assured – the seven-point plan he presented in June to prepare for the fall is already under way. This includes, among other things, “an infection protection law that is sufficient for all levels of infection,” emphasized the SPD politician, adding: “I’m happy to forego vacation for this”.
Should a new corona wave build up in autumn, as in previous years, it would start from a higher level than in previous years. According to the RKI, more than three quarters of the known infections are currently due to the BA.5 corona variant, which better escapes the immune system of vaccinated and recovered people. A new vaccination campaign by the federal government should ensure that risk groups and older people in particular are better protected against a severe course. Minister of Health Lauterbach and Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP) are still struggling to find a new legal basis for corona measures from the end of September. They want to present a proposal in July.
The health authorities in Germany recently reported 127,611 new corona infections (previous week: 130,728) and 104 deaths (previous week: 122) 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. The RKI has counted 29,308,100 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 go undetected.
Other sources:RKI dashboard, “Southgerman newspaper”.