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In recent months, large numbers of older people had been infected with the corona virus in individual nursing homes and retirement homes. The Ministry of Health is now working on new testing strategies to better protect particularly vulnerable groups of people. Corona tests will take place across the board in nursing homes and nursing homes starting October 15. This stems from a draft law for a national testing strategy with which the Federal Minister of Health, Jens Spahn (CDU), wants to regulate the use of corona tests in Germany. A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health confirmed a corresponding report from the Evangelical Press Service. Mirrors.
Accordingly, the 23-page draft also provides equally generous regulations for hospitals, ambulatory surgery facilities, medical and dental practices, dialysis facilities, practices for humane medical professions, and ambulatory care services. If a coronavirus infection is found in such facilities, according to the draft law, everyone who has been there in the previous ten days should be entitled to a test.
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According to the will of the Ministry of Health, nursing homes must have a monthly fee for so-called rapid antigen tests. Up to 50 tests per resident are planned. A facility with 80 residents could use up to 4,000 tests per month to repeatedly test visitors, staff and residents. Rapid tests will be paid for through the health fund, from which health insurers receive their funds. The ministry estimates this to be in the mid-triple-digit million range, depending on the development of the testing process.
The board of directors of the German Foundation for Patient Protection, Eugen Brysch, considers that it is necessary for the Minister of Health, Jens Spahn (CDU), to present an efficient corona test strategy for the care of the elderly. Brysch told the German Press Agency: “More than half of the corona deaths lived in a nursing home. The risk group lives here in a confined space. Therefore, it is necessary for the Minister of Health to initiate a Efficient Trial Strategy for Elderly Care “. It is also good to include caregivers and family members in the concept.
2,279 new corona infections reported in Germany
The Robert Koch Institute reported a comparatively lower number of new corona infections on Sunday. The health authorities had transmitted 2,279 cases in one day, as announced by the RKI in the morning. Experience has shown that the number of registered cases is usually lower on Sundays and Mondays, also because not all health authorities report data to the RKI during the weekend. According to the RKI, there had previously been more than 2,500 new confirmed infections for three days in a row.
From the start of the Corona crisis until Sunday, at least 299 237 people in Germany have been shown to have been infected with the Sars-CoV-2 virus (data as of October 4, 00:00). According to the RKI, the number of deaths related to a corona infection is 9529. Two more deaths have been reported since the previous day.
The number of views, or the R-value for short, was 1.10 based on RKI estimates in Germany based on the management report on Saturday (previous day: 0.97). This means that one infected person infects slightly more than one other person on average. The R value represents the infection rate approximately one and a half weeks earlier. Additionally, the RKI gives a seven-day R on its current status report. The value refers to a longer period and is therefore less subject to daily fluctuations. According to RKI estimates, this value was 1.13 on Friday (previous day: 1.08). It shows the infection process for eight to 16 days.
Students get a billion euros worth of loans
Due to the crisis in the crown, students applied for loans worth almost a billion euros. This stems from a letter from the Federal Ministry of Education to the budget committee of the Bundestag. Consequently, the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) approved around 30,800 KfW student loan applications and thus loans totaling € 919.6 million from May to September this year.
That’s almost four times more requests than in the same period last year. According to a KfW spokeswoman, 8,500 applications were submitted with a total volume of 315 million euros from May to September 2019. She described 2019 as an average year. An average of 23,000 contracts are signed each year.
The loans are intended to help students in financial distress whose part-time jobs have collapsed. In the hospitality industry alone, more than 300,000 mini jobs were affected at the end of June. Since May, no interest has to be paid on student loan contracts. This still applies until March 2021. Student loans are intended as a relief measure during the Corona crisis. “The offer is in great demand from German and foreign students,” says the letter from the Federal Ministry of Education.
Foreign students can also apply for a KfW loan during the interest exemption period. The KfW student loan of a maximum of 650 euros per month is paid for up to 14 semesters, that is, a maximum of 54,600 euros.
The Federal Ministry of Education has also created a temporary emergency fund. From June to September, 500 euros a month were paid to those who were able to prove through their bank statements that they had run into financial difficulties due to loss of income, for example from student jobs. It is not necessary to return the money.
Scotland and parts of the Netherlands declared risk zones
The federal government has declared other regions of Europe to be risk zones. All of Scotland is affected, as well as the North West, North East and the Yorkshire and Humber regions of England. Much of the Netherlands is also affected. The exceptions are Zeeland and Limburg. The Robert Koch Institute’s risk list was updated accordingly on Friday. The federal government is expected to issue a travel advisory for the regions mentioned shortly.
In Austria, however, Kleinwalsertal and the Jungholz community no longer count as risk areas. The two Austrian enclaves are an exception, the RKI said. For the rest of the Austrian federal states of Vorarlberg and Tyrol, the travel advisories of the Federal Foreign Office continue to apply.
Austrian enclaves, which can only be reached from Bavaria, have not reported a single new corona infection in recent days. Therefore, an online petition with more than 10,500 supporters called for exception rules.
The hazard zone designation and the travel advisories that usually follow do not imply a travel ban, but should have the greatest possible deterrent effect on tourists. The good news for vacationers: they can cancel a trip already booked if their destination is declared a risk zone. The bad: Returnees from risk areas must be screened and quarantined until the result is there.
The Tönnies outbreak cost the Gütersloh district € 9.6 million
It cost the Gütersloh district € 9.6 million to react to the corona outbreak at the Tönnies meat factory in Rheda-Wiedenbrück. About 1,000 company employees were infected. Then around 100,000 citizens had to be screened quickly, the authorities had to identify parts of the staff and their addresses, and mass quarantine measures were carried out. District administrator Sven-Georg Adenauer (CDU) now wants the company to be responsible for at least part of the costs, as the WDR reports.
In the past, entrepreneur Clemens Tönnies had already announced that he, as an entrepreneur, and the company as a whole had “full responsibility”. Adenauer sees this as a commitment to pay compensation. However, it is still unclear whether or how much Tönnies will actually pay. And it is also not certain whether the district could sue for the payment if it is not done voluntarily.
However, the city of Verl has already sent invoices for quarantine measures to Tönnies, according to the WDR. And the group has already paid at least part of it. There are still around 100,000 euros open. Apparently Tönnies also wants to pay a part, but how much is unclear.
Another vaccine study begins in Germany
In Germany, a corona vaccine based on a smallpox vaccine can be tested in people. The Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI) responsible for vaccines has approved the study. It is a so-called vector vaccine with which genetic material of the Covid-19 pathogen is smuggled into the body, as the PEI announced on Friday in Langen, Hesse.
In the first phase of the clinical trial, the agent developed by East German IDT Biologika in cooperation with the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) will be examined for its safety, tolerability and its specific immune response against the pathogen. 30 healthy adults participate in the study. You will receive two vaccinations four weeks apart.
Working groups in Hamburg and Marburg are simultaneously measuring the formation of antibodies and T cells in the body and comparing them to the immune response of recovered Covid-19 patients.
According to the World Health Organization, 41 Covid-19 vaccine candidates are currently in clinical trials around the world, some of them already in the third phase, which is important for approval. In Germany, according to the PEI, four of the so-called RNA vaccines and now two vector vaccines are in different phases of clinical trials.
