[ad_1]
“The worst happened at the end of April”
The vaccine with the side effects.
The risks are apparently low, but the loss of image is immense. Discontinuation of the AstraZeneca vaccine raises suspicion among the population. Meanwhile, the third wave is coming, or is it?
The situation of the crown could escalate again as early as Easter, the RKI recently reported and shocked the country. Renowned economist Hasan Alka believes this is an exaggeration. His model gives hope for spring. However, on one condition.
TOAs director of the Robert Koch Koch Institute (RKI), Lothar Wieler is not a man of good news in the corona pandemic. Yet what he and his colleagues published in the latest management report on Friday night sounded like a vision of terror even by their standards.
The third wave is here and could flood the entire country at Easter. A more dramatic situation threatens than before the end of December.
Wieler’s pessimistic forecast is controversial: For example, Hasan Alkas, a professor of economics at Rhein-Waal University in Kleve, also expects the number of infections to increase dramatically in the coming weeks.
There is no talk of relaxation on the RKI stage
However, he expects the seven-day incidence to be around 170 per 100,000 residents by the end of April. Before Christmas it had peaked at around 200.
Furthermore, Alkas assumes that the situation will ease at the latest from that moment. “I hope that we have survived the worst at the end of April and that things are looking better,” said Alkas.
Hasan Alkas is professor of economics at the Rhein-Waal University of Applied Sciences in Kleve.
On the RKI stage, however, there is no talk of relaxation. No later than the week after Easter, development really picks up. So incidences from 230 to more than 500 are possible.
Scientists are concerned about the uncontrolled spread of the British virus B.1.1.7 mutation in Germany. This is significantly more contagious than other variants and probably also causes somewhat more severe disease courses.
So far, the decline in the number of infections with other variants of the virus has masked the rapid increase in the number of infections with the British mutant.
Since the number of people infected with this dangerous variant has doubled every twelve days since the beginning of the year, it will soon become dominant. The RKI speaks of an “exponentially increasing trend”, which it describes as “worrisome”.
Source: WORLD Infographic
The development of the so-called reproduction number is also important evidence of a third wave. The national seven-day R-value in RKI’s evening management report was just five times less than one in the past two weeks, and above all significantly higher in the past few days.
A value above one means that, theoretically, 100 infected people infect more than 100 other people; therefore, a value above one is a sign of an increase in the number of infections. According to RKI’s management report, Sunday night’s seven-day R-value was 1.19 (previous day 1.19).
If things were the same way, that would mean, in purely mathematical terms, that from Easter on the number of cases with the mutant would rise above the Christmas level. Other variants would be almost completely rejected. The result would be an increase in deaths and an increasing use of intensive care units.
The economist Alkas considers this view to be questionable because it simply continues the previous trend. It has created a forecasting model for Covid-19, the aim of which is to make the subsequent course of the epidemic more accurately calculated based on past data. This shows that there have only been brief phases of exponential growth so far, around October.
And the R-value has never been above one for longer. The reasons for this are the relatively long incubation period of the virus and the short time during which those infected are contagious.
Alkas assumes 5.5 days, refers to RKI data. Other scientists and experts assume a significantly shorter period of time. This also explains the differences in the results.
Are we locked up again for Easter?
For the president of the Robert Koch Institute, Lothar Wieler, the current infection figures are not acceptable. He compares the fight against the pandemic to a marathon: “We are in the last third, and that is known to be particularly exhausting.”
Source: WELT / Christoph Hipp
It remains to be seen whether the experience gained so far with the pandemic can be transferred to the mutant. In other countries such as Great Britain or Ireland this was successful, but severe restrictions were necessary. There, the seven-day incidence of more than 600 cases has now fallen below the German level.
In Germany there shouldn’t be a significant relaxation in the current situation either, says Alkas. The current restrictions are the starting point for your calculations. However, he remains optimistic. “The RKI scenario could only materialize if the Germans expand their contacts, become more mobile and the vaccination rate does not increase,” he says.
“All in Stock” is the daily stock market shot by WELT’s business editorial team. Every morning starting at 7 am with WELT financial journalists. For stock exchange experts and beginners.Subscribe to the podcast atSpotify,Apple podcast,Amazon MusicYDeezer. Or directly throughRSS Feed.
