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05.26 am: German health authorities have the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) 22,924 new corona infections reported within 24 hours. They were too 553 new deaths recorded, as announced by the RKI on Friday morning. Currently, data interpretation is difficult because fewer people are likely to be tested during the holidays and around the turn of the year and not all offices are able to pass on their data. According to the RKI, this can lead to late registrations. A week ago, there were 25,533 new corona infections and 412 deaths in 24 hours. On Wednesday the peak of 1,129 new deaths was reached.
The number of new infections reported to health authorities in seven days per 100,000 inhabitants (Seven-day incidence) was included on Friday morning 141.9. Its previous high was reached on December 22 at 197.6. However, the differences between federal states are huge: Saxony had the highest incidences on Thursday with 334.5 and Thuringia with 256.3. Schleswig-Holstein had the lowest value with 76.4.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the RKI has counted 1,742,661 infections detected with Sars-CoV-2 in Germany (as of 01.01., 00.00 am). The total number of people who died with or with a proven Sars-CoV-2 infection increased to 33,624. The RKI stated that the number of people recovered was around 1,350,800.
Berlin Medical Officer: Closure Needed for Spring
06.00 am.: Berlin doctor Patrick Larscheid considers the lockdown inevitable until spring, not just in the capital. “We still have an incredibly high number of infections,” he told the German Press Agency. “After the New Year’s Eve weekend we will see the effect of Christmas days.” It can be assumed that mobility did not decrease so much in the second running of the bulls as in the first of spring.
Larscheid is a doctor in the Reinickendorf district of Berlin and feels the consequences of the pandemic every day. The possibility of vaccination is a great thing, he said. But so far it is not clear whether those vaccinated could still transmit the virus. “We will have to hold out for a few more months,” Larscheid said. “One should now appeal to the population that we have to accept all this.” He sees this very little at the moment. “But we have the ethical consensus that we want to weigh medical needs more than economic ones,” he emphasized.
Biontech Chefs Uğur Şahin and Ozlem Türeci
Photo: Stefan Sämmer / imago images
Heads of Biontech Türeci and Şahin: “Germany will receive enough vaccines”
06.00 am.: The Mainz company Biontech is working under great pressure to develop new production capacities for the corona vaccine. “Right now it doesn’t look rosy, there is a hole because there are no other approved vaccines and we have to fill this gap with our vaccine,” Biontech chief Ugur Sahin told SPIEGEL. But Germany “will get enough vaccines.”
The lack of vaccine is also related to the EU purchasing policy, Sahin said. “Many other companies were supposed to come with vaccines. Obviously the impression prevailed: we will have enough, it won’t be so bad and we have it under control. I was surprised, ”said the Biontech boss.
The idea of the EU and other governments to put together a basket of different providers actually makes a lot of sense, explained Biontech’s chief physician Özlem Türeci. “At some point, however, it turned out that many of them cannot deliver on time. So it was too late to place large orders elsewhere. “
Criticisms of the vaccination strategy in the Netherlands: 175,000 unused doses
5.45 am: Criticism of the corona vaccination strategy is increasing in the Netherlands. Although around 175,000 doses of vaccines from the manufacturers Pfizer and Biontech are already stored in a special warehouse in the east of the country, the country will be the last in the EU to vaccinate the first people until January 8 and will begin nationwide. January 18. Despite the criticism, the government does not want to advance the vaccination campaign. This is not possible for logistical reasons. The schedule will not be changed at the moment, a spokesman for the Health Ministry said on Thursday.
The acute medical care associations had made an urgent appeal to the Minister of Health to vaccinate nursing personnel in hospitals and intensive care units against Covid-19 next Monday. This can be solved quickly in hospitals.
According to their own statements, hospitals and intensive care units can barely withstand the pressure. In view of the increasing number of patients and severe staff shortages, medical care is difficult to manage. Army specialists have already been deployed to various clinics around the country.
More recently, nearly 10,000 new infections were reported in 24 hours on Thursday. For comparison: in Germany, with around five times as many inhabitants, around 23,000 new infections were recently recorded in 24 hours.
Merz calls for schools to open quickly
04.01 am: Ahead of the crown’s advice to heads of government at the federal and state levels on Jan. 5, CDU presidential candidate Friedrich Merz warned against renewed and longer school closings. Schools should “reopen as soon as possible,” Merz told the Funke media group newspapers. He would like the group of heads of government to proceed as uniformly as possible.
With her lawsuit, Merz supported the controversial initiative of the Minister of Education of Baden-Württemberg, Susanne Eisenmann (CDU). They have “the courage to say something right.”
Above all, it is not the economic damage caused by the closure, but the massive damage to the education of our children by closed schools. Children from socially disadvantaged families with little education, in particular, suffer from this. “This is” the biggest challenge in and after the pandemic. “
Söder stops hopes of a quick end to the running of the bulls
4 am: Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) has dampened hopes of a speedy end to the blockade or comprehensive easing. “We just have to cut the numbers in a sustainable way. Therefore, I am very skeptical about the prospect of new openings from January 10, “said Söder a few days before the new federal-state consultations of the German press agency.
Söder demanded that the federal and state governments continue to fight the virus. “We don’t know if we will receive a thank you or a receipt in the spring. But if we had not decided out of fear, we would have missed our mission, “he said. “The point now is not to find the most convenient solution, but the most effective one.”
Farmers prepare for harvest workers
3:00 am: Farmers in Germany are already preparing for the start of the growing season and the employment of harvest workers under special corona conditions. In 2020, about 30,000 harvest workers from Eastern Europe arrived by plane, some of them additional, said Bavarian President and Vice President of the German Farmers Association Walter Heidl. At least the same number of helpers will be needed in the new year 2021. “I am assuming a similar procedure again.”
In normal years, ten times as many harvest workers were employed across the country, in Bavaria alone there were far more than 30,000. If it is not possible to employ enough workers from abroad due to the current Corona crisis, crops could fail or some plants could open. Heidl warned that they should not be planted in fields or glass houses.
Over 550 Corona Vaccination Doses Destroyed – US Arrest
02.23 am: A former pharmacy worker at a Wisconsin hospital was arrested for ruining about 570 doses of a coronavirus vaccine. Initial investigations have shown that the suspect deliberately removed the vaccine from the refrigerator and left it overnight, Grafton police said Thursday. The man admitted that he knew the vaccine doses were therefore useless.
According to the police, the incident occurred on December 26. 57 doses of the ineffective vaccine were administered, which, according to the hospital, does not pose a direct risk to those affected. The motive for the act was initially unclear.
Demonstrations against Crown measures dissolved in Stuttgart
02:13 am: At the end of the year, the people of Stuttgart demonstrated against the crown policy of the federal government and the state government of Baden-Württemberg. There were repeated violations of the conditions. A total of five demonstrations took place on Thursday night, the police announced. It was not clear at first how many people participated in total. The protests were for “a New Year’s Eve without Corona measures” and “dying gastronomy.”
According to a police spokeswoman, officers screened attendees who claimed to have a medical certificate that exempted them from the mask requirement. But there were no major incidents.
Republican Candidate Quarantined Before Georgia Senate Runoff
1:48 am: A few days before the second round of elections for two crucial Senate seats in the US state of Georgia, one of the candidates went into quarantine. Republican Senator David Perdue had contact with a person infected by the crown, as his election campaign team announced on Thursday (local time). Although Perdue and his wife tested negative for the new corona virus, they are now both in quarantine.
The second round elections decide on the future majority in the United States Senate. They are of great importance because the future majority of the Senate will determine to what extent the future president of the United States, Joe Biden, can implement his reform agenda.
As it stands, President-elect Donald Trump’s Republicans have 50 seats in the House of Congress with 100 senators, Biden’s Democrats 48. Republicans only have to win one of the Georgia runoff elections to continue having the majority in the Senate.
