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Saturday, January 16, 2021
Dams against the crown mutation
Why the wave of Ireland alarms Merkel
By Christoph Rieke
By easing prematurely, Ireland is betting on the achievements of an acclaimed blockade. The spread of the coronavirus mutation is dramatically making the situation worse. What does this mean for defense against the German pandemic?
A look at Ireland these days does not bode well. As a result of the relaxation of the pandemic measures so noted in December, the infection rate in the republic seemed at times to be completely out of control. With the first week of January, the seven-day incidence skyrocketed at times to more than 900 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. Meanwhile, the value has weakened significantly, but there is still no sign of a real relaxation in Ireland despite a new lockdown. Of the total of around 163,000 infections recorded so far, nearly 44 percent were reported to authorities in this young year alone. The number of deaths is increasing. The coronavirus is back in force.
What’s more: the B.1.1.7 virus mutation discovered in neighboring Britain is also spreading rapidly in Ireland. Earlier in the week, the Irish Ministry of Health confirmed that in the first week of January more than 40 percent of infection cases can be attributed to the mutant were, and the trend is increasing. As so often in its history, the population of the Emerald Isle seems to be suffering from British influences. However, part of the bitter truth is that the spread of the new variant of the virus was preventable. The achievements of the November running of the bulls were played frivolously in Ireland.
International applause for the Irish flair has long since faded. The republic, with just 4.98 million inhabitants, is now seen as a deterrent example in the fight against pandemics. In Germany too, experts and politicians look at the EU member with more concern than admiration. Chancellor Angela Merkel is closely following developments in Ireland, according to ntv information, it was made clear at the CDU committee meetings on Thursday night. The development in Ireland and the mutation make everyone “very concerned”, confirmed CDU Secretary General Paul Ziemiak.
The mutation also reached Germany
The B.1.1.7 mutation has already reached Germany. So far, 16 cases are known in this country, the president of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Lothar Wieler, said on Thursday. The RKI does not yet assume that the mutant will be more widespread. But it was said that this was not impossible. Wieler also explicitly mentioned Ireland, which is an example of the potential danger. There, the spread of the coronavirus variant B.1.1.7 caused a sharp increase in the number of cases. At the same time, however, the RKI management report cautiously states that “it has not yet been conclusively clarified how the new variant will affect the infection process in Germany.”
But events in Ireland are warning enough. According to the Irish Ministry of Health, the recent wave of infection is clearly related to the spread of B.1.1.7. The outlook for the coming days and weeks is grim. In all, the pandemic in Ireland has claimed at least 2,536 lives.
Although the seven-day average of new daily deaths in Ireland is still 30, a comparison with Germany shows how dynamically the death rate can develop as a result of high infection rates. In Germany, the seven-day average death rate has risen to more than 800 in just a few weeks. At the beginning of October this comparative figure was 15.
Ireland’s chief epidemiologist, Philip Nolan, had already warned of “worrying” figures and an overload of the health system earlier in the year. Now the fight for human life has become even more difficult: according to information from the authorities on Friday, 1,848 people are currently being treated in hospital for the Covid 19 disease, 187 are in intensive care. On Christmas Eve, only 22 people were receiving intensive care. The current situation is “maybe even worse than what we’ve seen since the spring,” Nolan said. At that time, during the first wave, there were 881 Covid-19 patients and 155 intensive care cases in the worst phase.
Due to the precarious situation, the government of Prime Minister Micheál Martin again pulled the emergency brake: Ireland began the year 2021 with new restrictions on public life. In contrast to the November closure, which was already considered difficult internationally, schools and nurseries are now closed as well. Additionally, the government issued drastic entry regulations. Because the new variant of the virus is considered to be significantly more contagious, all measures in the fight against the Sars-CoV-2 pandemic appear to be sensible.
A look at the documented infection events of the past few days should make you feel optimistic. The number of new infections reported daily is declining on average, but still a far cry from the seven-day incidence of about 35 new cases per 100,000 residents in early December, which was once widely admired. Furthermore, epidemiologist Nolan regularly warns that there are likely to be a considerable number of unreported cases in Ireland.
Overall, Ireland’s record has been shocking since easing: attempts to relax corona requirements as quickly as possible coincided with the penetration of the most contagious variant of the virus, and the number of cases skyrocketed. The new threat situation is also causing concern abroad: in Germany, the federal and state governments advanced their deliberations on how to respond to the pandemic for next Tuesday. Participants around Chancellor Merkel will also be interested in her decisions to build barriers against the threat of the spread of the virus mutation with a view to developments in Ireland.
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