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AIn view of the skyrocketing crown numbers, calls for stricter restrictions will be stronger in Germany before Christmas. After the Robert Koch Institute reported new highs in the number of new infections and deaths on Friday, Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) demanded the immediate imposition of a lockdown. “The only possibility to regain control of the situation is a shutdown, which must take place immediately,” the minister told “Spiegel”, according to a report published online on Friday. “If we wait until Christmas, we will have to struggle with the high numbers for months,” he warned.
German intensive care physicians also called for an immediate shutdown in all federal states. Every additional day without comprehensive and sustainable lockdown measures costs human lives, said Uwe Janssens, president of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI). Even an immediate lockdown won’t allow numbers to drop significantly for two to three weeks. “It is almost irresponsible to hesitate and wait for Christmas,” says Janssens, chief physician of the Clinic for Internal Medicine and Intensive Medicine at St. Antonius Hospital in Eschweiler.
A look at Belgium, France or Ireland shows “that strict lockdown measures are capable of coping with the high number of infections,” says Gernot Marx, director of the Intermediate Care and Operative Intensive Care Medicine Clinic at Aachen University Hospital. . These findings should be enough to finally fight the virus after weeks of hesitation.
Janssens said hospitals are already preparing for prioritization situations: “If we have an average of 30,000 new infections every day for the next two weeks, we will have about 420,000 people infected with corona by Christmas. The resulting number of hospital patients and seriously ill patients requiring intensive medical treatment will no longer be adequately treated. “
Seehofer expressed anger at the current situation, according to “Spiegel.” He was really angry, the minister said. The advantage that Germany fought for in the spring during the pandemic has been lost. This is not due to the indiscipline of the citizens, but above all to inadequate measures.
At the end of October, after the prime ministers’ conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU), he had the feeling that not all heads of government had correctly recognized the seriousness of the situation, added the Interior Minister. “I slept badly after.” According to media reports, the federal and state governments want to discuss the Corona crisis again on Sunday.
Green leader Annalena Baerbock is also calling for a much tighter shutdown across the country with stores closed starting next week. Stores, except for those for daily needs, must be closed, schools must switch to distance learning from the seventh grade, Baerbock told the dpa news agency on Friday. “We should start a clear Christmas break now. We have to break the dynamics of the infection process ”, he emphasized before the maximum values of new infections and reported deaths.
“Protective measures should be strengthened from the beginning of next week,” Baerbock said. Stores and service providers should close quickly, only everyday products should be excluded; this would keep supermarkets open. “Immediately after business closes, more help should be provided to the companies involved,” demanded Baerbock.
Baerbock: 7th Grade Distance Learning Students
Schools should completely switch to distance learning via the Internet from the seventh grade onwards, and for younger students, the requirement to attend schools should be removed from the green leader’s point of view. However, kindergartens and primary schools should remain open, also so that more staff are not lost in the clinics. “One thing is clear: the right to education applies, even if children and young people are not sitting in the classroom due to the pandemic,” Baerbock added.
With a view to Christmas, the president of the Greens said that no one should have to be left alone. “But because the situation is so bad, the hospital nurses are working on the attack, I think it is correct that only people from a maximum of two households or the family nucleus meet at Christmas.” be possible.
Federal Economy Minister Peter Altmaier also urged speed: “Politicians must act now,” he said in the face of the new top of Corona. Again there is an exponential increase in the number of infections.
The Saarland researchers also called for a “fast, complete lockdown” after several simulations of different corona scenarios.
Researchers are testing three crash scenarios
“Without more stringent measures before Christmas, the number of cases will continue to rise, leading to several thousand additional corona deaths in January,” Saarland University clinical pharmacy professor Thorsten Lehr in Saarbrücken warned on Friday. Together with his team and research colleagues, he had developed the mathematical model for a Covid simulator that provides predictions for the whole of Germany.
According to Saar University, the scientists tested three lockdown scenarios to see how the number of infections would develop. One scenario is a lockdown as of December 14, as in March, with online lessons and only essential stores and facilities open. Then it was about a relaxation during Christmas and a strict lockdown only from December 27, he said.
“In the event of a complete and complete lockdown only after Christmas, the target incidence value of 50 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants on average during the last seven days would not be reached until the end of January at the earliest,” the university said. . The death toll across the country could then more than double. That’s why relaxation during Christmas should also be questioned, said the professor from Saarbrücken. A strict lockdown before Christmas could ensure that the incidence value of 50 can be reached throughout Germany by early January.
“At the beginning, we recommend proceeding uniformly across the country to avoid blocking tourism and defuse the tense situation across the board as soon as possible,” Lehr said. The described scenarios are calculated optimistically, since they did not take into account the increase in the number of cases in recent days and assumed a hard and consistent block.
In federal states with high incidence values of seven days, such as Saxony, Thuringia or Saxony-Anhalt, the blockade would have to run for a longer period of time to reach the incidence value of 50, explained the University of the Saar. In other federal states like Schleswig-Holstein, an improvement could be expected sooner.
According to the information, the Covid simulator records the number of coronavirus patients, their hospital treatment and deaths, as well as the existing capacities in the clinics. In addition to the surveys conducted by the Robert Koch Institute and the district and state health authorities, the numbers of corona cases investigated from the “Berliner Morgenpost” would be supplemented. In addition, there would be clinical data on more than 8,000 hospitalized Covid 19 patients from more than 100 German clinics and various information from health ministries.
The Robert Koch Institute reported a high level of new infections with the corona virus on Friday morning. According to this, 29,875 people were infected with the virus in 24 hours. The number of deaths in one day also rose to a new record: 598 people died from or with the virus. A total of 20,970 people have died in connection with the virus in Germany since the pandemic began in the spring.
