Experts are calling for the general end of the mask requirement in schools. The Robert Koch Institute reported 42,057 corona cases on Thursday morning. The US is planning an annual booster shot, similar to the flu. You can find all the news here in the Corona ticker on FOCUS online.
10.50 a.m .: Shortly before the Bundestag votes on the new infection protection law today, scientists and virologists warn in an open letter of tightened corona measures in schools. According to the decision paper, primary school children should be exempt from wearing masks, but not older children from the fifth grade. The state governments can regulate this by ordinance.
The “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland” quotes from the letter signed by virologist Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit and epidemiologist Klaus Stöhr, among others: “Schools with compulsory masks are not really open.” Despite the “restrictive measures, almost all children and young people have become infected – whether with or without vaccination”, so the reasoning. “Due to the associated immune protection, the risk of infection for them is even lower than before.”
Thursday, September 8, 5:22 a.m .: The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the nationwide seven-day incidence on Thursday morning as 223.1. This is evident from numbers that reflect the status of the RKI dashboard at 5 a.m. The day before, the value of new corona infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week was 217.2 (previous week: 237.3; previous month: 389.3). However, this information only provides a very incomplete picture of the number of infections. Experts have been assuming for some time that there will be a large number of cases not recorded by the RKI – mainly because not all infected people have a PCR test done. Only positive PCR tests count in the statistics. In addition, late registrations and transmission problems can lead to the distortion of individual daily values.
The health authorities in Germany recently reported 42,057 new corona infections (previous week: 39,396) and 117 deaths (previous week: 90) 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 32,386,089 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.
1:33 p.m .: The traffic light’s new infection protection law stipulates that patients will not only have to wear an FFP2 mask in clinics and care facilities, but also in doctor’s offices. However, there is an exception there: Doctors and the staff of medical practices are not subject to the mask requirement. This is reported by the “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND)”.
In hospitals and care facilities, on the other hand, the mask requirement also applies to medical and other staff.
According to the RND, the coalition had to agree on this unusual compromise because the FDP vehemently rejected extending the mask requirement to doctors and practice staff. The SPD and the Greens, on the other hand, wanted to include all employees.
6:55 a.m .: Unless there are drastically changed new variants of the virus, US authorities will probably – similar to the flu – recommend an annual corona booster vaccination. “We’re probably moving towards a vaccination schedule similar to that of the annual flu shot, with vaccines tailored each year to the strains that are circulating,” US President Joe Biden’s top coronavirus adviser, Anthony Fauci, told the press on Tuesday .
However, high-risk groups may need booster shots more often, Fauci added. The announcement comes a week after the FDA approved new vaccines from Biontech/Pfizer and Moderna, targeting the omicron subtypes BA.4 and BA.5.
According to the information, the distribution of the doses has already begun. The booster vaccinations should start this week and prevent a new wave in winter.
The approved vaccines are so-called bivalent vaccines, which are directed against both the wild type of the coronavirus, which is prevalent at the beginning of 2020, and the currently predominant omicron subtypes BA.4 and BA.5. The subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 are currently dominant worldwide, they caused the latest corona waves in Europe and the USA in the past few months.
Wednesday, September 7th, 5:36 a.m .: The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the nationwide seven-day incidence on Wednesday morning as 217.2.
This is evident from numbers that reflect the status of the RKI dashboard at 5 a.m. The day before, the value of new corona infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week was 219.1 (previous week: 243.7; previous month: 398.7). However, this information only provides a very incomplete picture of the number of infections. Experts have been assuming for some time that there will be a large number of cases not recorded by the RKI – mainly because not all infected people have a PCR test done. Only positive PCR tests count in the statistics. In addition, late registrations and transmission problems can lead to the distortion of individual daily values.
The health authorities in Germany recently reported 46,495 new corona infections (previous week: 49,303) and 120 deaths (previous week: 181) 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 32,344,032 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.
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