Status: 12.09.2021 3:38 p.m.
Before the start of the nationwide vaccination week, Chancellor Merkel once again called on people to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. Criticism comes from the Greens: a week of action is far from being enough.
Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) has called on citizens in Germany to start a nationwide vaccination campaign week to use the offers for corona vaccinations. “It has never been easier to get a vaccination. It has never been faster,” she said before the start of the campaign this Monday.
There will be vaccination offers from the volunteer fire brigades, in the tram, on the edge of soccer fields and in mosques. Everyone can then be vaccinated without an appointment and free of charge. “I therefore ask you: Protect yourself and others. Get vaccinated,” appealed the Chancellor. The vaccination week lasts until September 19th.
“We have to convince even more people”
Unfortunately, the number of new infections is increasing again, warned Merkel in her video podcast. The vast majority of patients treated in the hospital or in the intensive care unit are not vaccinated. In order to get through autumn and winter well, “we have to convince even more people to get vaccinated”.
A year ago there was still no way out of the pandemic, Merkel reminded. “Today we can offer exactly this way out: vaccination with safe and effective vaccines.”
She said it was great that more than 55 million people in Germany had accepted this offer and that over 50 million of them were even fully vaccinated. “This is a huge success,” she emphasized.
Göring-Eckardt calls for an information campaign
The Green Group leader Katrin Göring-Eckardt criticized that it was not enough for Health Minister Jens Spahn to declare one week to be an action week. “It now needs a broad information campaign, from now on every week has to become an action week,” she said.
Even when switching to the new 3G rules with relief for those who have recovered, vaccinated and tested, the federal government is making massive mistakes. It is incomprehensible, for example, why a regular test is necessary in schools, but not in the workplace. “Instead of creating uniform regulations for an orderly transition across Germany, the federal government would rather bow its head before the election, leave the problems behind or once again shift responsibility to the federal states.”
Göring-Eckardt called vaccination a question of solidarity. Everyone has the right not to be vaccinated. “But one does not have the right that everyone who has been vaccinated and the rest of society and the children should take it into account.” Therefore, should restrictions become necessary again to prevent overloading the health system, a distinction must be made between those who have been vaccinated and those who have recovered and those who have only been tested.
Seven-day incidence is 80.2
According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the seven-day incidence today was 80.2 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants – and thus slightly lower than the previous day (82.8). The health authorities in Germany reported 7,345 new corona infections to the RKI within one day. A week ago the value was 10,453 infections.
However, the RKI dashboard for Baden-Württemberg only showed one newly added case. In the previous days there were well over 1000 each. The RKI did not initially state whether there were any further discrepancies. In general, a plateau in the incidence of infections has been observed for a few days: on Sunday a week ago, the incidence was 83.1, so it has hardly changed since then.
In the case of Covid 19 patients in intensive care units, the initially steep increase now seems to have flattened out somewhat. Yesterday, the DIVI intensive care register reported 1439 Covid 19 patients in intensive care treatment – an increase of 27 on the previous day. On the previous Saturday there had been an increase of 41 patients, on Saturday two weeks ago (28.8.) There was an increase of 51 patients.
How long the fourth corona wave could persist on a plateau is unclear. Without a significant increase in the vaccination rate, experts expect a sharp increase in the number of cases in autumn and winter.
Hospitalization rate increases slightly
According to the RKI, eight deaths were recorded across Germany within 24 hours, but there may be gaps in the data. A week ago it was 21. The RKI counted 4,077,640 detected infections with Sars-CoV-2 since the beginning of the pandemic.
The number of corona patients admitted to clinics per 100,000 inhabitants within seven days was given by the RKI on Friday at 1.95 (previous day 1.89). A nationwide threshold, from when the situation can be viewed critically, is not provided for the incidence of hospitalization, among other things because of large regional differences. The previous high was around 15.5 around Christmas time.
The RKI stated the number of those who had recovered at 3,823,500. The number of people who died with or with a proven infection with Sars-CoV-2 rose to 92,606.