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The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) is no longer assuming an increasing rate of coronavirus infection in Germany. After the number of views had been 1.1 in recent days, the number fell to 0.94 since Tuesday night, according to the institute.
This means that ten infected people infect nine to ten more people. The RKI has repeatedly emphasized that for the pandemic to decrease, the number of reproductions must be less than one in the long term. The R value shows the infection process from about a week and a half ago.
Estimates for R have uncertainties. Because they are also based on assumptions about how many people have recently been infected in the past few days, about which the RKI has yet to receive reports. According to the RKI, the R value is currently 0.94, but with a 95 percent probability in the range of 0.79 to 1.10. “So far, we do not expect the trend to increase again,” said the management report.
“The number will always fluctuate”
Lars Schaade, vice president of RKI, had already spoken Tuesday morning about the stability of the R-value. “The number will always fluctuate, it just comes from the calculation basis,” said Schaade. “As long as it fluctuates around one, it means there is no increase. If it is permanently above one, then we are in exponential growth and the number of cases is permanently increasing.” As the number of cases generally decreases, individual local outbreaks would have a greater effect on the value of R.
Schaade said that the R value is only one parameter to evaluate the dynamics of the pandemic. Another important factor is the number of new infections, which is currently less than 1,000. “There are always distortions in the numbers because, for example, not as many infections are reported over the weekend,” Schaade said. “Many don’t go to the doctor there, and many health departments don’t provide any numbers on the weekends.” Therefore, the numbers must be estimated using a relatively complicated process.
