The number of corona infections is currently exploding around the world, primarily because of the Omikron virus variant, but in Germany they have been falling steadily over the past few days, and the intensive care units are not overloaded either. On Wednesday, however, Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) warned of a corona blind flight and one should not feel safe. The data are incomplete, so the current situation should not be underestimated. The numbers were not recorded correctly over the Christmas holidays, so there is no reason to give the all-clear, he said. The Senate Health Administration’s crisis team met in the capital. Topic: What needs to be done so that the infrastructure does not collapse in the event of an Omikron wave.
The governing mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) visited the vaccination center in the ICC on Wednesday together with the health senator Ulrike Gote (Greens). In the 1970s exhibition spaceship, which has been vacant for years, a labyrinthine booth town has emerged, in which, with the help of seven dozen Bundeswehr personnel, what is possible could be vaccinated. If there were enough vaccinated people. At lunchtime on Wednesday, the crowd of politicians, soldiers and journalists was by far the largest gathering in the ICC.
Then Giffey spoke once more about the success of the vaccination campaign in Berlin: The capital has now reached almost 75 percent first vaccinations. There is also progress with boosting, with up to 50,000 vaccinations per day. While the value on Tuesday of last week was around a third, it has now reached 37 percent. “We are now heading towards 40 percent,” said Giffey. But that is not enough. Further, further and further vaccination must be carried out. The initial goal is still a rate of 80 percent.
Giffey and Gote also reported on the crisis meeting in the health administration in the hours before. In order to protect the so-called critical infrastructure – such as hospitals, police, community offices, BVG or garbage disposal – from collapsing under the impending wave, vaccination should be carried out at high pressure in these areas and industries. As long as the failure rate – be it due to illness, mere infection or quarantine of contact persons – does not rise above 30 percent, according to Giffey and Gote, it is manageable. After that it will be difficult.
Demands for a shortened quarantine
There is also the question of whether an ordered quarantine can be shortened in order to avoid longer failures in such important areas. In addition, both politicians kept a low profile. So far, politics has strictly adhered to the guidelines of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), which provides for a quarantine of 14 days for everyone who has had close contact with someone infected with Omikron. Regardless of whether the contact person is unvaccinated, double vaccinated or even boosted. The booster is considered to be the best protection against Omikron. Many therefore call for the quarantine rules to be relaxed.
Unlike some politicians, especially from Bavaria, the two Berliners held back on Wednesday with requests or even demands in the direction of the RKI. Giffey only said this much: “We hear that the RKI is working on it.” Then a shortened quarantine period will be considered in an emergency.
And then there is the problem with the nationwide corona numbers chaos, which continued on Wednesday. The data situation remained unclear, as it was a year ago around Christmas time. The reason for this is that there is less testing over the holidays. Many authorities were also closed, and health authorities transmitted less data.
Health Minister Lauterbach wants to solve the reporting problem
After the reporting delays, the federal government is now quickly seeking more meaningful data on the corona situation. There are talks with the RKI and other experts, Lauterbach said on Wednesday. “It is a central task for me to improve this situation,” he affirmed. However, he is assuming that “valid and solid” data will be available for the planned next Prime Minister’s Conference with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) on January 7th. He emphasized again: He did not consider the decline in the total number of cases to be sustainable. The incidence is “two to three times as high” as reported.
Indeed: According to the Robert Koch Institute, the number of new infections fell to 40,043 cases on Wednesday. However, the proven and probable omicron cases have increased, it said on Wednesday afternoon. 13,129 cases of this would now be assigned to the new Corona variant, 26 percent more than the previous day.