Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach now recommends a fourth corona vaccination for those under 60. He also wants to go back to electronic sick notes. The Corona numbers remain at a high level. 109,694 new cases are reported on Friday. All news can be found here in the Corona ticker.
12.49 p.m .: The chairman of the Standing Vaccination Commission (STIKO), Thomas Mertens, contradicted Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach. On Thursday, he recommended the fourth vaccination for everyone, including people under the age of 60.
He does not know any data that would justify such a recommendation, Mertens told the “Welt am Sonntag”. “I think it’s bad to make medical recommendations under the motto ‘a lot helps a lot’.”
While he shares the EU’s recommendation to vaccinate people over 60 against Corona for a fourth time, he disagrees with Lauterbach’s latest recommendation. It is important to realize that “we cannot constantly vaccinate the entire population – including younger, healthy people – every year”. The aim of vaccinations is not to prevent infections, but diseases.
The triple vaccination protects well against severe courses, Mertens continues. “But the transmission of the virus is only slightly affected.”
7.17 a.m .: Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) also recommends a fourth corona vaccination for people under the age of 60. “If someone wants to enjoy the summer and doesn’t want to take the risk of falling ill (…), then I would of course recommend vaccination to younger people in consultation with the family doctor,” said Lauterbach on Thursday in the “Spiegel” top-level discussion about a second booster vaccination . “Then you just have a completely different level of security.”
The long-Covid risk is “significantly reduced for a few months,” as is the risk of infection, Lauterbach said. People could also take a vaccine adapted to Omicron after the fourth vaccination. Such a vaccine could be available in late August or early September, but that depends on approval, said the health minister.
Lauterbach thus goes beyond the recommendations of the EU and the Standing Vaccination Commission. On Monday, the EU recommended a second booster vaccination for people over the age of 60. In Germany, the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) has so far recommended a second booster vaccination for people over the age of 70, at-risk patients and residents of care facilities and employees in the medical field and in care facilities.
Friday, July 15, 5:07 a.m .: The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the nationwide seven-day incidence on Friday morning as 719.2. This is evident from numbers that reflect the status of the RKI dashboard at 05:00 a.m. The day before, the value of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week was 720.4 (previous week: 699.5; previous month: 472.4). However, the incidence does not provide a complete picture of the infection situation. 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 or transmission problems can lead to the distortion of individual daily values.
The health authorities in Germany recently reported 109,694 new corona infections (previous week: 117,732) and 115 deaths (previous week: 131) 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 27,633,000 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.
8:44 p.m .: The number of corona outbreaks in old people’s and nursing homes has recently increased significantly again. Outbreaks with at least one new case were reported to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) in the past week from 235 of these institutions, as can be seen from the weekly report on Thursday evening. In the previous week there were 192.
The over 80-year-olds are still most affected by severe disease progression. In this age group, around 25 per 100,000 inhabitants came to the hospital last week with a severe respiratory infection and Covid-19. Across all age groups, this value was 3.7 – that corresponds to around 3100 new hospital admissions per week.
According to the RKI, the infection pressure in the general population and the associated burden on the health system remained high. “Even if the number of cases remains the same, further increases in serious illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths can be expected,” writes the institute. For the past calendar week, the authority calculated a number of 800,000 to 1.3 million Sars-CoV-2 infected people with symptoms of an acute respiratory disease.
The number of doctor visits due to acute respiratory diseases is still significantly higher than usual for the time of year. 1.2 million consultations were recorded for the past week, a good quarter of them due to a Sars-CoV-2 infection.
The RKI still advises avoiding contacts if symptoms of a respiratory disease occur, such as a runny nose, sore throat or cough, regardless of vaccination status and rapid test results.
Thursday, July 14, 5:20 a.m .: The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the nationwide seven-day incidence on Thursday morning as 720.4. This is evident from numbers that reflect the status of the RKI dashboard at 5 a.m. The day before, the value of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week was 691.8 (previous week: 690.6; previous month: 447.3). However, the incidence does not provide a complete picture of the infection situation.
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 152,149 new corona infections (previous week: 135,402) and 145 deaths (previous week: 108) 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 29,460,249 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.
The National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians had previously requested this (see below).
9:18 p.m .: Sick leave when you call – what was possible until the end of May because of Corona should be possible permanently for certain patients according to the will of medical representatives. “We want to make it possible for the resident doctors to be able to write sick patients over the phone, regardless of the corona pandemic,” said Stephan Hofmeister, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV), on Tuesday of the German Press Agency. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) is open to the demand.
The chairman of the German Association of General Practitioners, Ulrich Weigeldt, called it “a real nuisance” in view of the numerous cases of colds and corona diseases that the possibility of determining incapacity for work (AU) by telephone had not been included in standard care. “The telephone AU would provide real relief,” Weigeldt told the dpa.
Health Minister Lauterbach correctly called a return to telephone sick leave. It should be decided soon. Preliminary talks were under way. “With the high number of Covid cases, we do not need to carry the infections to the practice,” emphasized the minister on Twitter.
Tuesday, July 12, 3:27 p.m .: Because she is said to have caused a corona outbreak with deaths in a nursing home, the Hildesheim public prosecutor’s office has brought charges against a 45-year-old. The former employee of the home is accused of negligent homicide in combination with negligent bodily harm, the authority said on Tuesday. Despite the corona infection of her son who lives with her, she initially continued to work. She informed her employer about her son’s infection on November 26, 2021. She was then allowed to continue working because the home mistakenly assumed that she had been vaccinated twice. Actually, she should have gone into quarantine.
The woman is said to have been infected with the corona virus unnoticed at the latest three days later and infected a work colleague during a coffee break. As a result, three other employees and eleven residents became infected. Three residents aged 80, 85 and 93 died. According to the public prosecutor’s office, the forensic medical examinations showed that the corona infection was the cause of death in the 80-year-old. Other causes cannot be ruled out for the other two victims.
The woman had called in sick on November 30th. A week later, she is said to have informed the home about the hospitalization of her partner, who also had Covid-19. During this conversation, the employer is said to have reminded her to present her vaccination card. The woman sent a photo of an ID card, which turned out to be a fake. The investigations into forgery of documents are being conducted in a separate procedure.
The investigators had the PCR smears of the deceased residents, the suspects and their partner, who had died in the meantime, examined more closely. According to this, a connected chain of infection can be assumed. However, the accused’s sample was accidentally destroyed in the laboratory.
Monday, July 11, 11:37 a.m .: The EU recommends a second corona booster vaccination for people over the age of 60. “In view of the renewed increase in cases and hospital admissions at the beginning of the summer, I urge everyone to get vaccinated and boosted as soon as possible,” said EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides on Monday, according to a statement from the EU health agency ECDC and the EU Medicines Agency EMA. “We have no time to lose.”
Kyriakides called on EU member states to “immediately provide second booster vaccinations” for people over 60 and other particularly vulnerable people.
In Germany, the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) has so far recommended a second booster vaccination for people over the age of 70, at-risk patients and residents of care facilities and employees in the medical field and in care facilities. In view of the easy transmissibility of the omicron variant of the corona virus, the nationwide seven-day incidence is currently 661.4 new corona infections per 100,000 inhabitants.
The German Association of General Practitioners called on the federal government on Friday for a new vaccination campaign to fight the corona pandemic. “A positive vaccination campaign is needed – not only for the fourth vaccination, but also to close the vaccination gaps for the first and third vaccinations,” said the head of the association, Ulrich Weigeldt, to the newspapers of the editorial network Germany (RND).
Sunday, July 10, 11:01 a.m .: According to Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, the long-term health consequences of some corona infections are not only a problem for those affected, but also for the health system and society as a whole. “We don’t even have the capacity to deal with the many cases,” he said in an interview with “Zeit Online”. “There are not enough specialized doctors, not enough treatment places, we don’t have any medication yet. Something is really coming our way here.” The problems associated with Long Covid are widely underestimated.
The SPD politician said: “This will also be relevant for the labor market, because unfortunately many will not return to their old productivity.” He is also hoping for a vaccine that will also help against infection with the omicron variant. “Hopefully this not only protects against a severe course, but also against infection and thus also against Long Covid,” the minister continued. Every corona infection carries the risk of long covid, Lauterbach warned on Twitter on Saturday.
According to an evaluation of data from insured persons published by Techniker Krankenkasse on Wednesday, almost one percent of employees who had received a corona diagnosis with a PCR test in 2020 were on sick leave in 2021 with the diagnosis Long Covid. The sick leave took a relatively long time – an average of 105 days.
12.04 p.m .: The chairman of the board of the University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein, Jens Scholz, raises the alarm. Because of the Corona summer wave, 600 employees are currently missing there. “Due to the high staff shortage, we can currently only partially maintain patient care,” said the brother of Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) to “Welt”.
At the Kiel site, a third of the operating rooms are currently closed, and in Lübeck almost 20 percent. “In order to be able to guarantee emergency care, we have to postpone some of the operations that can be planned,” explains the anesthesiologist.
He criticizes that too many employees are being quarantined who have tested positive but feel good, are no longer infectious and can actually go to work. “This endangers the care of our patients, for example in the case of a heart attack, stroke or cancer.”
“We test ourselves to death in Germany,” criticizes the anesthesiologist. “This panic has to end.”
His suggestion: “We should deal with Corona like with the flu: if you are sick, stay at home. We don’t need rapid tests or quarantine regulations for this.” Wearing an FFP2 mask is enough to protect patients from infection. It is also important to offer all over 60-year-olds a fourth vaccination in autumn.
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