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In Germany, the number of people infected with coronavirus has exceeded 163,000, however, infections are unevenly distributed across the country. Almost half of them are registered in only three provinces: Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg. They are all in western Germany. At the same time, there are relatively few cases of infection in the five eastern provinces: Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. Infections in the eastern part of the country are only about 10% of the total for Germany.
Why are your income lower?
Several important aspects play a role here, Hayo Zeb of the Bremen Institute for Preventive Research and Epidemiology, Leibniz told DPA. It indicates first the age and mobility of the population.
“In a society, a higher proportion of adults and a lower proportion of mobile people can have a deterrent effect on the spread of infection,” he said. When the virus does not penetrate a region, it cannot be transmitted to older people who, according to many reports, are at risk of serious illness, Zeb explains.
Especially in the beginning in Germany, the infection spread mainly among younger people who had traveled, the expert recalls. However, in the East German Länder, the proportion of young travelers is not as high as in Bavaria, for example.
“In Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Hamburg, the coronavirus was brought from ski resorts, such as Ischgl in Austria,” recalls Zeb.
There were almost no such reports in the eastern provinces, he said. The expert emphasizes that people’s incomes in the eastern German states are significantly lower than in the western states. And the choice of a place to rest is related to the standard of the people. Understand: Those with enough money can afford ski vacations.
Furthermore, carnival processions are significantly more common and popular in the West than in the eastern German states.
“These holidays definitely affect the overall epidemiological picture,” said Zeb.
For example, in the Heinsberg region of North Rhine-Westphalia, many people became infected during the carnival.
Most sparsely populated areas
Another factor is the lower population density in most East German states. This is especially true in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a sparsely populated province with many rural areas. But there are other examples: in the city of Bremen, in West Germany, which is relatively densely populated, there are relatively few patients.
A happy coincidence was the fact that the first quarantine measures were taken before the infection in the eastern German states began to spread. We also hear another thesis: that in the East German provinces the situation with the coronavirus is not so serious due to the mandatory immunizations against tuberculosis during the GDR. So far, however, there is no scientific evidence that the BCG vaccine also helps against the coronavirus, Hayo Zeb told DPA. Lothar Wheeler, president of the Robert Koch Institute, also made a statement in this regard. And the WHO has no evidence of such an effect from the tuberculosis vaccine. The head of the institute, Robert Koch, also explained the regional differences in the distribution of Kovid-19 with social and demographic characteristics.
The text has been published. HERE
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