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In Germany, health authorities reported 23,542 new corona infections to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) in 24 hours. A new high was reached on Friday. Last Saturday the previous record was reached with 23,399 cases. Compared to Thursday, the number of reported cases increased by nearly 1,700 on Friday.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the RKI has counted a total of 751 095 infections detected with Sars-CoV-2 in Germany (as of November 13, 00:00). The number of deaths related to the virus rose by 218 as of Friday to a total of 12,200. As of Thursday, that increase had been 215 cases. The RKI estimates that around 481,700 of those registered have recovered.
RKI chief Wieler had been cautiously optimistic at a news conference Thursday because the surge in new infections was apparently weakening. This shows that the virus can still be mastered. The thousands of people currently in quarantine are proof of the effectiveness of the health authorities.
But Wieler also warned: “The number of serious cases will continue to rise and the number of deaths will also increase.” Both occur late. The virus is expected to spread uncontrollably in parts of Germany.
Coalition wants private health insurers to share vaccination costs
The grand coalition wants to stipulate by law that private health insurers must also contribute certain costs to combat the corona pandemic. Specifically, it is the proportional assumption of the costs of vaccines in the planned vaccination centers. This stems from a request from the Union and the SPD to the Bundestag, which is available to the dpa news agency. The German publishing network had already reported on this.
The level of participation should be based on the proportion of private policyholders in the total population. The regulation aims to make vaccination less bureaucratic and therefore more efficient and faster. In this way, patients could be treated independently of their insurance, without counting individual cases.
The vice chairman of the SPD parliamentary group, Bärbel Bas, emphasized that everyone who wants to be vaccinated should have the right to do so. “And, of course, private health insurance has to cover the costs of its insured,” he told dpa. Until now, private insurance has largely been excluded from the costs of the pandemic. For example, tests are paid for from legal medical insurance reserves. Bas emphasized that private participation was behind schedule.
Spahn: No more celebrations this winter
Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn also expects severe restrictions due to the crown beyond current measures in November. “We have to manage together to get through this winter overall with lower numbers at a lower level,” the CDU politician said on RBB news radio on Thursday looking at the infection figures.
Watch events with more than 10 to 15 people, like Christmas parties or other socials “this winter.” If the number of infections decreases, “that does not mean that from December or January things can start again everywhere with wedding celebrations or Christmas parties as usual. The situation requires patience: “This virus has very long slip marks.”
In light of the current number of infections, Spahn fears that the number of corona patients in intensive care units will double this month. If 20,000 new people are infected every day for a longer period of time, and two percent of them have to be treated in intensive care units for two weeks, their number will likely increase to more than 6,000 at the same time in November. Spahn said. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “The numbers should not go up any more,” he emphasized. “If so, it is foreseeable that we will reach a point where the health system is overwhelmed.”
Doctors and nurses could deal with 6,000 corona patients in intensive care units, the minister said: “But only under great stress. So we have to gather all our strengths in hospitals.” Operations would have to be postponed again, operating room staff would have to help out in intensive care units.
NRW Health Minister: “A minister has never had to do that to vaccinate a whole town”
From the point of view of the North Rhine-Westphalia Health Minister, Karl-Josef Laumann (CDU), the upcoming mass corona vaccination will in some cases lead to supply bottlenecks. Supply could not be maintained as usual in all areas, he said in the Düsseldorf state parliament on Thursday. If doctors had to work in vaccination centers several times a week in the future, they would not be able to operate their offices to the normal extent at the same time.
Due to the infection situation, the vaccine staff can hardly be removed from hospitals, at least initially. Recruiting specialists from the state volunteer registry is “not easy” for this special task. In this sense, the demands of the SPD state opposition to present a personnel concept and a sophisticated vaccination strategy “immediately” are “pleasant to say,” Laumann said. “The staff you need for this enormous task are already in the healthcare system today.”
Laumann assured that NRW would, of course, take care of the necessary vaccination centers and logistics. However, “it would shake and cause trouble at such a massive event” https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/ “A minister has never had to do that to an entire town. Vaccinate” .
Approximately 3,000 schools are not in regular operation due to Corona
According to media reports, around 3,000 schools in Germany no longer teach in regular operations due to Corona. This is reported by the newspapers of the Funke media group, citing figures from 14 federal states. These are schools that no longer offer full face-to-face teaching. To put it in perspective: in Germany there are about 40,000 schools with a total of eleven million students and about 800,000 teachers.
In North Rhine-Westphalia alone, according to that country’s Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs, students from 552 schools are quarantined by order of health authorities and receive digital education. In Bavaria there are no longer regular face-to-face classes in 255 schools and in 273 schools in Baden-Württemberg.
In Lower Saxony, individual classes or years were temporarily withdrawn from classroom teaching in 347 schools and sent to homeschooling. According to Funke, 221 colleges in the state teach in a so-called split-class alternate model, in which some of the students come to school and others learn at home. In Hamburg, 213 schools are no longer in full normal operation. In Thuringia, 109 schools are affected by the quarantine measures, in Rhineland-Palatinate 216, in Brandenburg 170 and in Saxony-Anhalt 120.
According to the report, schools in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania are only partially present in 30 institutions, 71 in Schleswig-Holstein, 128 in Saarland and 170 in Saxony. 365 study groups have been closed in Berlin. According to Funke, Hesse and Bremen did not provide any information on how many schools teach partially or fully at a distance.
