Many people in Germany are sick at the moment. The current report from the Robert Koch Institute shows the extent to which Corona or other viruses are involved.
The number of acute respiratory diseases in Germany remains at a comparatively high level for the time of year. For the week of October 14th, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) assumes that there will be around 6.9 million people affected across Germany, regardless of a doctor’s visit, according to a current report.
Accordingly, there were around 8,200 acute respiratory infections per 100,000 inhabitants. However, compared to the previous week, the number of illnesses has fallen, especially among school children aged 5 to 14. According to the RKI, the number of serious cases is low overall and is at the level of previous years.
Samples from doctors’ offices most often contained rhinoviruses (29 percent), i.e. the classic cold viruses, and coronaviruses (19 percent). Influenza A and B viruses, which are responsible for the flu, have not yet been detected. Estimated, around 1.5 million people went to the doctor because of an acute respiratory illness.
“If you take the time before Corona as a reference, it is unusual. The numbers were always significantly lower,” says Dortmund immunologist Carsten Watzl of the German Press Agency. That has changed in the last two years.
Meanwhile, around ten percent of the population suffered from a respiratory disease in autumn and winter. “This is certainly also due to the fact that we now have another respiratory pathogen, the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus,” explains the scientist. “I therefore assume that we will have to prepare for such high numbers of infections in the next few years, especially at this time of year.”
According to the information, the estimated number of corona diseases was 900 per 100,000 inhabitants. According to the RKI, due to the autumn holidays in some federal states, the values can fluctuate more and subsequently increase.
A total of 11,580 laboratory-confirmed corona cases have been reported to the RKI in the past week. That is slightly less than the week before (around 12,040 so far). In the current season, 193 deaths with corona infection have been reported to the RKI. Almost all of those who died (96 percent) were 60 years old or older.
The Corona variant XEC has been spreading in Germany for a few weeks. According to RKI data, it was recently detected at a rate of 39 percent. The most common corona type was the subline KP.3.1.1, whose proportion was 40 percent. Both are sublineages of the omicron variant and, according to scientists, appear to be spreading faster than previous Sars-CoV-2 lines. This is not unusual, as virologist Sandra Ciesek recently told the dpa. The virus continues to mutate and is always looking for new ways to infect people.
According to Watzl, the omicron variants multiply primarily in the upper respiratory tract and can therefore spread more quickly. The variants could also more easily circumvent the existing immunity in the population.