There are most corona cases in Thuringia, Saxony and Bavaria. The people there have to adjust to stricter rules. A bitter foretaste for everyone else in the next pandemic winter?
Petra Köpping is like everyone else. “I’m really fed up with Corona,” said Saxony’s Minister of Health this week. “But the virus is not interested in that.”
The pandemic is raging with full force again. The number of cases is exploding all over Germany, but nowhere as in Saxony, Thuringia and Bavaria. “Those are the three hotspots that we have in Germany,” Köpping knows too.
The map of Germany from the Robert Koch Institute mainly shows the south-east in dark red. Nationwide there was the sad record of 37,120 new infections reported on Friday. The seven-day incidence reached 169.9 – that is the corona infections per 100,000 inhabitants within seven days. In Thuringia, however, it was more than twice as high at 386.9. Saxony was almost equal with 385.7, then Bavaria with 256.8. In many districts of the three countries the value is over 500, in the Upper Bavarian district of Miesbach even over 700.
The three countries want to turn things around with stricter rules – perhaps a foretaste of what is coming nationwide. The health ministers of the federal states tried on Friday to coordinate a conference on Lake Constance. An urgent appeal came from Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer. “If we take too much time now, it will end in a lockdown like last year,” said the CDU politician on Friday on Deutschlandfunk.
Kretschmer no longer wanted to talk so much about the reasons for the dramatic wave in his country. But for experts, the connections are clear. “That correlates very clearly with the level of vaccination,” says the Leipzig epidemiologist Markus Scholz, who mainly analyzes the situation in Saxony.
When it comes to vaccination, the state is at the bottom: 56.9 percent of the population were fully vaccinated as of Thursday, compared to 66.9 percent nationwide. Thuringia was also below average with 60.9 percent, as was Bavaria with 64.8 percent. Scholz can break the context down to the regional level. In Saxony there are neighboring circles that are structurally similar and only differ in the vaccination rate, says the expert: a low vaccination rate means higher infection rates.
But that cannot be the only explanation, because Brandenburg also has a weak vaccination rate of 60.8 percent, but the incidences are not nearly as high. In previous corona waves, it was suspected that the high average age in Saxony and Thuringia could play a role. The rural structures were mentioned, the closer family ties, the sociable club culture. Border traffic to the Czech Republic and Austria could also play a role, because the corona situation in neighboring countries is even worse than in Germany. Thuringia is not on the border.
In addition to the low vaccination rate, the Erfurt Ministry of Health sees two main reasons for the high numbers: the accumulation of corona cases in kindergartens and schools and the late end of the summer holidays. In addition to Saxony, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, Thuringia was one of the federal states with the latest holiday end. According to the ministry, the incidences among 6 to 17-year-olds were over 600 in the last few weeks. Three effects could come together: the late return to travel, the beginning of the cold season and closer contact indoors.
In Bavaria, the border area with Austria has been particularly hard hit. Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) said this week that there is not only a nationwide, but also a Bavaria-wide north-south divide in vaccination rates. However: In counties with particularly high incidences, the vaccination rate is sometimes above the Bavarian average.
It often remains a mystery to the authorities where so many people are infected with Corona. “The infection process is diffuse,” it says simply from the district office in the Miesbach hotspot. You can no longer control it, the numbers rose exponentially. Contacts would no longer be followed up, and quarantine orders would no longer be checked.
After several municipalities in southeast Bavaria had tightened the corona rules regionally, the state government followed suit on Wednesday: For hotspots with an incidence of more than 300 and a utilization of the intensive care units of 80 percent, the strictest rules of the corona traffic light will apply from the weekend Free State. Much is then only accessible to vaccinated and convalescent people. However, restaurants and body-hugging service providers such as hairdressers, where a negative PCR test is sufficient, as well as local public transport and retail are excluded. Students across Bavaria have to wear masks again after the autumn break.
Saxony and Thuringia are also trying to tighten the reins. The Thuringian Minister of Health Heike Werner (left) is relying on restrictions for unvaccinated people, especially since the situation in the country’s clinics is worsening. In nursing homes, she wants to expand the obligation to test for employees. With the municipalities, she insists on implementation of the rules in warning level three. Accordingly, only vaccinated, convalescent or PCR-tested people are allowed in restaurants.
Saxony even wants 2G throughout from Monday: In restaurants or indoor events, only those who have been vaccinated and recovered are allowed, a test is not enough. That is not unreasonable, said Prime Minister Kretschmer in the radio interview – especially in comparison to the complete closure of shops and restaurants.
But does 2G bring the turning point? Epidemiologist Scholz warns that people who have been vaccinated should not feel too safe either. The vaccination protection decreases significantly after six months, the fastest in older people. “The vaccinated risk groups are now at risk again, so you have to be careful,” says the Leipzig scientist.
That is why people over 70 years of age urgently need a «booster», and this kind of refreshment would also make sense for everyone else. “I don’t quite understand why one hesitates for so long,” says Scholz. “This is really the highest railway now.”