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The Robert Koch Institute reports a new record for new Covid-19 infections: 19,990 people were infected with the coronavirus in 24 hours. According to this, 118 more people died in connection with the corona virus during this time. In total, the RKI counts 597,583 cases of infection and 10,930 deaths in Germany.
Maas quarantined again
Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas went into quarantine for the second time in a few weeks due to contact with a person infected by the crown. The Foreign Ministry announced that a first corona test was negative on Wednesday. Maas will again isolate himself in a house in Brandenburg.
The contact already took place on Monday night with a “participant of a foreign delegation”. Minister of State Michael Roth was also present. The Foreign Ministry was only informed of the positive test from the contact person on Wednesday. Maas attended a cabinet meeting on Wednesday morning.
Dieter Hallervorden takes action against the theater’s closure
Cabaret artist Dieter Hallervorden (85) takes legal action against the temporary closure of his Berlin theater. Due to the corona pandemic, the Schlosspark theater where he performs has to close at the end of the month. Hallervorden said Wednesday that it had submitted an urgent application to the administrative court.
“I would like to correct a political decision, because I consider it disproportionate and partly illegal,” Hallervorden told the German press agency. It invokes the freedom of art, which, unlike the freedom of professional exercise, knows no restrictions.
The Berlin administrative court confirmed that an urgent request had been received. It is not yet clear when the court will decide. Starting this week, stricter requirements apply across the country. For example, according to the Berlin State Infection Protection Ordinance, restaurants, pubs and cinemas must close. Concerts and theatrical performances in front of an audience are also prohibited.
More than 5000 Bundeswehr soldiers in the fight against Corona
According to the Ministry of Defense, there are now 5,350 soldiers on the Corona deployment. In total, there are 1,025 requests for help, the soldiers are deployed in 247 health departments. They help with contact tracking, for example, but medical staff are also deployed and storage space is available.
In all, the Bundeswehr had offered up to 15,000 soldiers for use in helping Corona.
17,214 new infections in one day
The Robert Koch Institute reports 17,214 new infections in 24 hours. Another 151 people died in connection with the coronavirus during this time. The RKI counts a total of 577,593 cases of infection and 10,812 deaths.
Artists appeal to Merkel
Ahead of the Chancellor’s meeting with employers and business associations on Wednesday, numerous artists signed a call for more aid from Corona for the self-employed. In the call initiated by the leader of the Green parliamentary group, Katrin Göring-Eckardt, the federal government is urged to “finally take the concerns of the self-employed and the self-employed seriously and consult them at the highest level on an equal footing with other business associations in the design and improvement of aid programs “. The firms include musicians Udo Lindenberg and Till Brönner and author Carolin Emcke, along with other politicians and green associations.
Existing bridging aid should be “immediately” freed from bureaucracy and, like emergency aid, made available to more affected people. In addition, the more than 140 first-time signatories demand that the path be cleared for corporate salaries. Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) will meet with members of the joint executive committee of the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations and the Federation of German Industry on Wednesday to discuss current economic policy issues related to the corona pandemic.
Although more than two million people in Germany are self-employed and the self-employed generated revenues of 77.7 billion euros in 2015, representatives of the self-employed, self-employed or art and culture are again not invited, according to the call.
Spahn: “The emergency brake was necessary”
What about the capacity of the beds and the test options in Germany? Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU), Lars Schaade, Vice President of the Robert Koch Institute, and representatives of doctors explain the current restrictions of the crown at a press conference in Berlin. The pandemic is “a daunting task,” says Spahn. The climax has not yet been reached. “This is a common effort.” Partial locking was necessary: Spahn talks about pulling the “emergency brake”.
“Our health system has never been overloaded and yet there is nothing to overlook,” emphasized the minister. The number of new infections has risen exponentially and the concerns of doctors warning of overload are taken seriously. “We will support hospitals where we can.” Discussions are under way with the federal states on how the capabilities can be used in the best possible way. “We are in a crucial phase,” he says with a view to increasing the number of intensive care units.
RKI Vice President Schaade says, referring to the number of infections over the past few weeks: “If things continued like this, we would have over 400,000 new infections reported per day by Christmas.” The R-value has been well above 1.0 since the beginning of October. “The medical staff is still sufficient, but our health system also has its limits.” In the next eight to ten days, many of the newly infected would have to be treated in intensive care units.
Looking ahead to the corona test labs’ overload warning, Schaade explains that when capacities are at the limit, the number of unreported cases also increases. However, at the moment this is not yet the case; This can be seen in the positive rate of all examinees, which currently remains roughly the same level. If this rate increases, this indicates a high number of unreported cases. Schaade calls on the population to adhere to the contact restrictions. But it is also encouraging: “The chances of a vaccine are soon realistic.”
Melanie Brinkmann, a virologist at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research, adds: “We have to break the wave, we have to stop exponential growth.” In his opinion, it would have been better to brake even earlier. The partial lock is a “bought time”. In the meantime, you need to focus on finding pragmatic solutions and ensuring contact follow-up again.
According to Uwe Janssens, president of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI), the real core problem from the point of view of the medical profession is the lack of nursing staff. The pandemic crown reinforces it “like a crystal on fire.” Therefore, routine operations in hospitals must be changed slowly: From a medical point of view, interventions that can be postponed must be urgently postponed, says Janssen. When asked about his claim that the information provided by the clinics on the number of intensive care beds available is not always correct, Janssens says, “I can assure you that we have enough intensive care beds.”
Since spring, hospitals have been forced to report daily to DIVI the number of usable intensive care beds. The number of beds for which there are sufficient intensive care workers available for care and treatment is expressly counted. According to Janssens, the indications and samples showed that the DIVI registry sometimes also reports beds for which there is no nursing staff available. He told the dpa news agency on Tuesday. The extent of the incorrect reports is unclear.
According to Spahn, the Corona warning app has already been downloaded nearly 21.6 million times. “We also see more and more users sharing their positive results,” he says. So that you have more commitment without making the application mandatory. Nor does he consider this to be practical.
