According to state vaccination coordinator Daniel Stich, the vaccination campaign, which is currently rather sluggish, will get going again with the start of the vaccine adapted to the latest virus variants. You can find all the news here in the Corona ticker on FOCUS online.
According to state vaccination coordinator Daniel Stich (SPD), the currently sluggish vaccination campaign will gain momentum again with the start of the vaccine adapted to the latest virus variants. “I expect that and I hope so because it is imperative,” said Stich of the German Press Agency. So far, only 27 percent of the over-60s in Rhineland-Palatinate have opted for a second booster vaccination. That’s not enough. “Corona is still a risk and a threat for older people and the chronically ill.”
According to information from the federal government, the vaccine from Biontech/Pfizer, which has been adapted to the virus variants BA.4 and BA.5, will be delivered from October 5th, said Stich. He assumed that the vaccine could also be administered in the country a few days later. The new drug was approved by the European Commission just under a week ago.
However, Stich advised everyone who is to receive the second booster not to wait. A vaccine adapted to variant BA.1 has been available in Rhineland-Palatinate for more than a week. But: “The demand is very, very low and we still have room for improvement,” said the coordinator. In the 20 vaccination centers there have so far been “not even 2000 vaccinations or registrations for the new adapted BA.1 vaccine”.
It could be that people are waiting for the prospective vaccine because BA.5 is currently the predominant variant of omicron. Stich said he would like the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) to issue recommendations for the adapted vaccines, “ideally tailored to the start of the BA.5 vaccine”.
According to the vaccination dashboard of the Robert Koch Institute, around 390,000 people in Rhineland-Palatinate have received a fourth vaccination so far. With the first booster vaccination, which is recommended for everyone over the age of 16, there are 2.6 million.
2:51 p.m .: People, beers, sensations. After a two-year break from the pandemic, the Oktoberfest starts again this weekend. How can the world’s largest folk festival work under Corona conditions? In any case, it will be a symbol – for the return to normality or as a superspreader event with an announcement. Read the full text here.
Saturday, September 17, 6 a.m.: The number of children up to six years old who tested positive for the corona virus has settled at a low level in Saxony-Anhalt in recent weeks. In the summer months of June, July and August, between 100 and 350 cases were recorded every week, as the State Office for Consumer Protection announced on request. The highest value during this period was registered in the 29th calendar week of July (346).
At the beginning of March, in the tenth calendar week, 3,560 children up to the age of six were still demonstrably infected. 215 cases were registered in the past week.
In the past, the state government had spent several million euros to provide daycare centers with rapid corona tests. The regular tests were discontinued at the beginning of May. Since then, the day care centers have only been provided with an event-related test offer. It should stay with this procedure for the time being, said a spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Magdeburg. According to the current status, no regular tests are planned for autumn.
12.06 p.m .: The health department of the Berlin district of Mitte is investigating against Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) for a possible violation of the country’s corona isolation regulations. A spokesman for the district told the AFP news agency on Friday that a total of five reports against Lauterbach had been received by the medical officer or health department. These will now be pursued. First, the “world” reported online.
The health department recently contacted the office of the health minister and asked for an opinion on the allegations, the spokesman said. However, no reply has yet been received. Lauterbach had tested positive for the corona virus on August 4th, so he temporarily carried out his official business from domestic isolation. On Twitter, the quadruple vaccinated first wrote of “slight” and later of “stronger symptoms than expected”.
After six days, on August 10, Lauterbach again attended a cabinet meeting. The day before he had tweeted that things were slowly improving – and went on to write: “Hope the recovery will be complete soon.” He told ARD on the same day that he was negative again, but didn’t feel quite fit. The Corona Ordinance of the State of Berlin only provides for the premature termination of the ten-day isolation requirement if the infected person has been symptom-free for at least 48 hours.
A spokesman for the health ministry said on request that the health department had contacted the ministry weeks ago. At that time, the office was given the same information as the public about the minister’s isolation period and test results. Lauterbach had a PCR test five working days after he was found to be infected. The CT value of the test was well over 30 and thus indicated that it was no longer infectious at this point.
Before leaving isolation on August 10, three quick tests were negative and Lauterbach had been symptom-free for more than 48 hours. “Since the minister wanted to be sure that he was no longer contagious,” he also confirmed the rapid tests with a PCR test. “According to our information, the case for the health department is over,” said the BMG.
10.19 a.m .: This Friday, the Federal Council will vote on the new corona rules for autumn and winter decided by the Bundestag. The parliamentary votes were preceded by a lengthy bickering between the traffic light coalition and several federal states.
A point of contention: With the new regulation, Corona should be included in a list of particularly contagious infectious diseases such as cholera, measles, whooping cough and plague. Persons who are ill or who are suspected may only enter schools and daycare centers with a medical certificate or a negative test – a five-day quarantine alone is not enough. Schleswig-Holstein’s Education Minister Karin Prien (CDU) called this a “disaster for schoolchildren”.
As the “Bild” reports, the federal government has now reacted. At today’s vote on the amended Infection Protection Act in the Bundesrat, she will make a statement for the minutes. According to “Bild”, this provides for Covid-19 to be removed from the list of diseases in Section 34 (1) of the Infection Protection Act. That should then happen in the Federal Council meeting on October 7th.
5:01 a.m .: The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the nationwide seven-day incidence on Friday morning as 249.9. 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 244.4 (previous week: 229.5; previous month: 313.6). 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 38,749 new corona infections (previous week: 35,995) and 117 deaths (previous week: 119) 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 32,643,742 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.
Friday, September 16, 1:16 a.m .: Given the time of year, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) expects more respiratory diseases in the near future. “In the coming weeks after the end of the holiday season, a seasonal increase in respiratory diseases overall is to be expected,” says the institute’s Covid 19 weekly report on Thursday evening. Accordingly, older people in particular could be severely affected. The RKI called for mutual consideration: If symptoms such as a runny nose, sore throat or cough appear, you should not go to work, sick children should not go to school or kindergarten. In the event of illness, it is more important to avoid contacts and to contact the family doctor if necessary.
Also with a view specifically to Corona, the RKI advises: “Against the background of high incidences due to the widespread spread of the omicron subline BA.5, the recommendations for infection prevention should continue to be observed.” The quite long-lasting decline in these infections in Germany has stopped. The nationwide seven-day incidence, for example, remained relatively stable compared to the week before last, “after it had previously decreased for seven weeks”. According to the data, the downward trend did not continue even in the case of severe Covid 19 diseases. There was talk of a plateau in the number of intensive care patients affected.
There is little movement in the evaluations of variants of Sars-CoV-2: In a sample, the omicron subline BA.5 is still responsible for the largest proportion of cases (95 percent). BA.4 comes to around three percent. An mRNA vaccine from Biontech/Pfizer, which is adapted to these two pathogens, was approved by the European Commission at the beginning of the week. BA.4 and BA.5 have identical spike proteins.
Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) expects vaccinations with the approved new preparation to start quickly. Vaccines adapted to the omicron subline BA.1 have recently become available – a pathogen that is no longer relevant. However, based on previous data, it is not possible to directly compare which of the new vaccines is better. The effectiveness also depends on which variants will prevail in the coming weeks and months – which is currently completely open. According to researchers, it is important that risk groups can be given a second booster vaccination at all. The recommendation of the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) on the new vaccines is also expected.
Thursday, September 15, 6:30 a.m .: The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the nationwide seven-day incidence on Thursday morning as 244.4. This emerges from figures that reflect the status of the RKI dashboard at 5:28 a.m. The day before, the value of new corona infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week was 236.2 (previous week: 223.1; previous month: 317.8). 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 or transmission problems can lead to a distortion of individual daily values.
The health authorities in Germany recently reported 46,514 new corona infections (previous week: 42,057) and 230 deaths (previous week: 117) 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 or 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.
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