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Shortly after Christmas, on December 29, a horror number ran through Germany. 1,129 coronavirus-related deaths were reported in 24 hours. A sad high point in the pandemic that has been rampant for almost a year.
Shortly before and after, however, other figures seem to be cause for hope. The number of new confirmed infections on December 27 and January 3 was lower than it has been for a long time. On January 3, the Robert Koch Institute reported 9,847 new cases, and for the first time since late October, the value was below the 10,000 mark.
But what is the cause of these seemingly contradictory developments? As already announced in advance and also mentioned in most of the reports, there were sometimes considerable fluctuations in the number of cases due to holidays.
This leads to fluctuating case and evidence numbers
The surgeries of the doctors, the health centers and also the authorities were less staffed during the holidays, like the other weekends. Also, people likely behaved differently on vacation than usual. If symptoms are mild or unclear, they may not have gone to the doctor or test center right away and may be putting off testing until after the holidays. Or they did a quick test as a precaution, the results of which, however, are not included in the official RKI figures.
As a result, there were initially fewer tests and possibly more tests and labs after the holidays. That is a likely explanation for the fluctuations in the reported numbers.
The following graph shows how much the Christmas effect affects the number of tests performed. The number of weekly corona tests on Christmas week was as low as last August last year.
Data on new infections can only be robustly interpreted when medical practices, laboratories and health authorities are back to normal and a period of time that is not distorted by holidays can be observed. That won’t be possible until the end of this week at the earliest. The RKI is even more cautious and, upon request, explains: “A reliable assessment of epidemiological developments will not be possible until the end of next week / early next week at the earliest.”
Hospital statistics
Hospital statistics are much less influenced by holidays than by the number of cases. Treatment of the crown patients continued unabated during the holidays. If you look at the number of corona intensive care patients, there is also an increase during the holidays:
However, for the first time since autumn, there has recently been a decline in the number for several days. The growth in the number of patients in intensive care seems at least to be weakening.
However, it is important to take into account the time lapse between infection and the start of intensive treatment. This averages about seven days. Therefore, the evolution of the number of patients in intensive care at the beginning of the year continues to reflect the infection rate around Christmas.
So there is a cautious hope that the second shutdown has at least slowed the number of serious cases. The next few days and weeks will only show if the measures were sufficient to reduce the number of patients. The same applies to the question of how family celebrations and travel on Christmas days and at the end of the year have influenced the infection rate.
Summary
The data situation for the next decision on the continuation of corona measures is generally fraught with some uncertainty. There are indications that the infection process at least slowed down on the second shutdown. So far it is difficult to say what effects the Christmas festival itself had.
However, it is clear that the numbers are currently well above the target of a maximum of 50 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants per week, and therefore too high for health authorities to track infections. Also, the mutated variant of the coronavirus that is spreading in Britain, which has already been detected in Germany, calls for caution. All indications point to an extension of the measures currently in force.
