[ad_1]
Mask requirement in schools, meet a maximum of two people who do not belong to your own home, quarantine for everyone who has a cold – had it been for the federal government, these measures against the corona virus would probably already be applied. At least these points were in a corresponding draft resolution, which, however, was not reached by the Prime Minister on Monday.
But the postponement is not canceled, as Foreign Minister Helge Braun made clear Tuesday morning in ZDF. The federal government plans to toughen the rules for more contact restrictions and more protection against infection in schools next week, according to the CDU politician.
Only a significant decrease in the number of infections could perhaps prevent tougher measures. In fact, there are currently signs of reduced growth, a flattening of the curve in the daily number of cases. But is that really a success of the measures that have already been decided, or is it a change in testing strategy that downplays the infection process?
Laboratories on the edge
A good two weeks ago, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) had to adjust the recommendations about who should get tested. The step was necessary as more and more laboratories reached their limits. Reagents became scarce, the waiting time for test results became longer and longer, fatal for people with symptoms for whom the test decides on additional therapies.
Previously, doctors were encouraged to test for milder, nonspecific symptoms that indicated Covid-19. In Bavaria, everyone can get tested for free.
It would be utopian to try to test everyone with a cold and sore throat in the cold season of fall and winter. According to the RKI, up to three million adults and children would need to be tested each week. “That is neither possible nor necessary,” RKI Vice President Lars Schaade said after the new rules were published on November 3. Realistically, most labs in Germany currently manage a maximum of 1.6 million tests per week anyway. Rapid antigen tests could fill in some of the gaps, but a PCR test is still needed for a reliable diagnosis.
-
By Schweren symptoms such as pneumonia, bronchitis, or trouble breathing
-
If he Sense of smell or taste
-
Unexplained symptoms after a Category 1 contact in a Covid-19 case
-
To who At-risk group heard i’m medical area If you work or have contact with many people, you should continue to be tested for signs that suggest a respiratory illness, regardless of the severity of your symptoms. This also applies to anyone who can within a larger group have infected. (Read the exact rules here).
“We would like our recommendations to be implemented”
The adjustment of the test strategy was probably unavoidable in view of the capacity limits (some experts asked for this in August). Even so, now more cases should go unnoticed. The RKI is also aware of this.
“Of course that will have an impact, we would like our recommendations to be implemented,” RKI chief Lothar Wieler said last Thursday of the modified test strategy. Exactly how this will affect the number of reports cannot yet be estimated, according to Wieler, because about a week elapses between infection, testing, and reporting the test results to the RKI.
The new testing strategy is already making itself felt in the lab numbers. The »taz« had also reported it. According to the Association of Accredited Laboratories of Medicine (ALM), 1.26 million PCR tests were carried out last week, about 200,000 fewer than the previous week. As a result, labs are no longer 97 to 100 percent occupied, but only 81 percent, according to the association. However, you are still working at your limit, but at least not beyond that right now.
The problem: The new testing strategy could influence two decisive values that are important in assessing the pandemic:
-
the Number of new infections reported per day – because if you try less, you will probably find fewer cases.
-
Because tests will now be carried out primarily to detect clear symptoms of Covid 19, the rate is also increasing. Percentage of positive tests. More recently, 7.88 percent of PCR tests were positive. At the beginning of October it was 2.49 percent.
What values are still reliable
Due to the new testing strategy, the values could no longer be compared with those of recent months, said Bonn virologist Hendrik Streeck of the German Press Agency (dpa). “That alone, without the off light, would probably already lead to a decrease in the number of new infections if these testing recommendations prevailed.”
Germany has had to live with uncertainties since the beginning of the pandemic. It is not the first time that the RKI has to adapt the recommendations for testing. In addition, politicians repeatedly determined who should be evaluated with priority, returnees from trips by keyword. Now, the effects of the adapted test strategy fall precisely at the moment when new restrictions are discussed.
A simulation from the Science Media Center shows how the modified testing strategy could affect the number of cases. The figure on the left shows how the infection curve would develop if the number of new infections per week increased by 40 percent and the old testing strategy still applied (green curve).
If only 80 out of 100 cases are recognized by a modified testing regimen, the number of new infections reported per day will also decrease. Depending on whether the new strategy is implemented abruptly (blue) or with a delay (purple), the impact on the numbers will be noticed sooner or later, it will be less overall.
The model shows how the modified testing strategy could affect the number of cases reported daily (left) and growth (right). Green – without a new test strategy, blue – the new test strategy is implemented immediately, purple – the new strategy is gradually implemented.
Photo: Science Media Center
To what extent the model corresponds to reality is difficult to quantify. However, it is unlikely that the number of cases reported now will decrease proportionally to the lower test volume and greatly trivialize the situation, because Covid-19 testing is now primarily targeting specific symptoms. Therefore, it is expected that a relatively large proportion of infections will continue to be recorded and, above all, that tests that would have been negative anyway will be omitted.
Why Suspected Cases Probably Have To Be Patient In Winter
Furthermore, the number of new infections reported per day had increased less strongly even before the new test recommendations, and the R-value had also decreased, an indication that the current decrease in the number of cases is not solely due to the new test strategy. However, if fewer cases are detected, this would have a direct impact on incidence values, which are often used when making decisions about additional measures. This once again shows the weakness of the parameter. (Read more about this here).
Why the number of unreported cases probably increased even before the new testing strategy
Politicians and experts are not blindly groping for the pandemic. This is also shown in the Science Media Center simulation. The number of new infections reported daily may change due to the adapted testing strategy. If, on the contrary, you compare the growth, that is, how fast the number of cases increases compared to the previous week, the effect is only noticeable for a short time, as can be seen in the graph on the right. Because the values are compared weekly, the influence of the new test strategy on growth should wear off in seven days.
RKI chief Wieler also assumes that the number of unreported cases has increased even before the new testing strategy because the labs had reached their capacity limit. Several antibody studies assume that the number of unreported cases in spring was four times the number of known infections.
Corona deniers continue to cite this as an argument that the evidentiary capacity, which has increased since then, only illuminates this number of unreported cases and dramatizes the situation. But in this simplicity that is wrong. Because you can hardly expect an unreported number of unreported cases for one parameter: Anyone who is very seriously ill with Covid-19 has to go to the intensive care unit. These cases can hardly go unnoticed. And the number of intensive care patients has reached a new record and the number of deaths is also increasing rapidly. On Wednesday alone, the RKI reported 305 deaths from Covid-19, the previous Wednesday there were 261.
The RKI is already preparing for a winter in which suspected cases will have to wait for tests. “Given the currently limited testing capabilities and the frequency of colds in the winter months, it is not possible to confirm all Covid-19 illnesses in Germany by testing,” says the RKI website. Some of the infections remain undetected and cannot be entered into the reporting system. Therefore, the RKI advises all people with “any respiratory symptoms” to isolate themselves at home for at least five days and only leave the house when they have been symptom-free for 48 hours.
