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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 record was reached during the pandemic on Friday, according to information from the RKI. The previous peak was reached last Saturday; that day, the RKI recorded 23,399 new infections.
What do the numbers say about current development?
Compared to Thursday, the number of reported cases increased by almost 1,700. However, small fluctuations in the number of reported cases are normal. Among other things, they are related to when the laboratories perform the tests and the health authorities report the positive cases to the RKI (read more here).
Values collected over a longer period of time are more significant. According to RKI’s management report on Thursday night, the so-called seven-day R-value is still below one, namely 0.93 (previous day: 0.89). This means that, in theory, 100 infected people infect 93 other people. Only when the value is less than one for a longer period of time, it can be assumed that the outbreak will decrease again. However, the current value of R shows that the number of infections is no longer increasing as rapidly as in October, despite the new highs.
RKI chief Lothar Wieler called the current development “cautiously positive” due to the slower increase in the number of cases on Thursday. However, it is not yet clear what the causes of stunting are. Citizens may be seen to have already behaved more cautiously before the partial shutdown and reduced their contacts. But it is also possible that laboratories and health authorities are reaching their capacity limits and cannot report more cases.
Despite a partial closure, a new record, how can that be?
According to the RKI, it takes two to three weeks for a measure like restaurant closings to have an impact on the number of infections. As a general rule, this is the time that elapses between a person’s infection, their test, and the notification of their case to the Robert Koch Institute through the health department. Only at the end of this chain do people appear in the official statistics.
According to the RKI, the current seven-day R-value, which indicates how many people each infects on average, represents the infection rate from 8 to 16 days ago. Since the partial close has only been in effect since the beginning of November, its influence could be reflected in this value next week.
Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) also did not want to give a forecast on Friday on whether the corona conditions imposed for November can be relaxed in December. It was “too early to evaluate it now,” he told the ARD “Morgenmagazin.” The coronavirus has “long skid marks”, so the new measures are always reflected “with a very long delay.”
Even with a good development in the number of new infections, not everything could be as it was in December, Spahn said. For example, birthday and wedding celebrations, as well as company Christmas parties, should be avoided. “We will have to keep up with that in winter,” he said.
Who is infected according to current figures?
According to the Robert Koch Institute, the number of older people among Covid-19 cases has increased again since the beginning of September. The seven-day incidence for people 60 years and older is currently 95 cases per 100,000 population. For comparison: in all age groups, the health authorities reported 139 cases per 100,000 inhabitants for seven days.
In a large number of cases, health authorities cannot trace the source of the infection. This shows that not all infections are known. In the known chains of contagion, according to the RKI situation report, numerous people were infected at home, in homes for the elderly and the elderly or at work.
In an outbreak in a nursing home in Frankfurt am Main, the coronavirus was detected in 67 people. Eleven of them had to be treated at the hospital, six have died according to the current situation report.
How is the situation in hospitals?
Two weeks ago, just under 1,700 Covid-19 patients were treated in intensive care units in Germany, according to the RKI, on Thursday it was just under 3,200. This means that the number has almost doubled over the period. More than half of the patients in the intensive care unit require artificial ventilation.
In Germany, however, there is currently no shortage of intensive care beds: according to the Divi intensive care registry, more than one in five beds (23 percent) is free in intensive care units. Additional capabilities could also be developed. However, there is a lack of trained nurses in Germany who can care for such a large number of patients, as warns Uwe Janssens, president of the German Association for Intensive and Emergency Medicine. Infections between doctors and nurses exacerbate the situation.
