The German Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach, urged this Friday the federated states to re-impose the use of mask in interior spaces Given the increase in the number of covid cases in recent weeks.
“We’re not headed in a good direction,” he said in Berlin during the presentation of a campaign to encourage citizens to get vaccinated and take other measures to prevent contagion.
He argued that it is better that the “Länder”, which currently have such competence, now impose less restrictive measures, instead of having to react more drastically later.
The Law on Protection against Infections in force provides that at the regional levell Among other measures, the obligation to wear a mask or present a negative test to access certain spaces may be imposed if the epidemiological situation makes it advisable.
“We have no reason to assume that the wave before us is going to limit itself,” said the minister, who pointed out that the death toll is rising again, as is also doing occupancy of intensive care units.
Lauterbach further stated that official statistics do not reflect the real dimensions of the infectious phenomenon, since many citizens do not confirm their home positive with a PCR test, so the total number of infections could be several times higher.
760.1 cases per 100,000 inhabitants
“This means that possibly right now we don’t have 100,000 new cases, but, if we counted them all, up to 400,000 cases,” he said.
According to data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for virology, the seven-day cumulative incidence stands this Friday at 760.1 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants, while in the last 24 hours, 114,198 new infections were detected and 165 deaths were recorded.
The campaign presented today by Lauterbach under the slogan “I protect myself” will be broadcast in the media and social networks with the aim of improving the vaccination rate, particularly among those over 60 years of age.
In her, 84 people -representing the 84 million citizens in Germany– They will tell about their experiences with covid and their reasons for getting vaccinated and taking other precautionary measures.
The German Association of Hospitals gave this week the voice of alarm before the overload that many hospital centers are experiencing due to the high number of covid patients and to the multiple casualties in their templates due to this same illness.