The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the nationwide seven-day incidence on Wednesday morning at 231.2. The EU medicines authority warns of the dwindling effect of the corona drugs. Officials from NRW complain about their corona infection. You can find all the latest news in the Corona ticker on FOCUS online.
5:51 a.m .: A week after China’s strict corona policy was relaxed, the country’s authorities are no longer able to closely monitor the spread of the virus. The true number of infections can no longer be specified, the national health authority said on Wednesday. “Many asymptomatic people no longer do PCR tests, so it is impossible to accurately state the current number of asymptomatic infected people.”
According to media reports, Vice Prime Minister Sun Chunlan stated that the number of infections in the capital Beijing was “increasing rapidly”. In view of this, many people are stocking up on medicines, online networks are reporting about sold-out medicines and long queues in front of pharmacies in the capital.
After nationwide protests and a slump in foreign trade in November, the People’s Republic began moving away from its strict zero-Covid policy a week ago. Across the country, quarantine rules and testing requirements were initially relaxed or even abolished and the mass closures ended. On Monday, the authorities also announced the end of the state Corona app, which severely restricted people’s freedom of movement for two and a half years.
The Chinese leadership’s abrupt about-face means the country will now face a wave of coronavirus cases for which it is ill-prepared: millions of elderly people are still not fully vaccinated, and underfunded hospitals lack the capacity to catch one accommodate large numbers of patients.
Wednesday, December 14, 5:15 a.m .: The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the nationwide seven-day incidence on Wednesday morning as 231.2. This is evident from numbers that reflect the status of the RKI dashboard at 5 a.m. The day before, the value of new corona infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week was 228.1 (previous week: 207.7; previous month: 216.7). However, this information only provides a very incomplete picture of the number of infections. Experts have been assuming for some time that there will be a large number of cases not recorded by the RKI – mainly because not all infected people have a PCR test done. Only positive PCR tests count in the statistics. In addition, late registrations and transmission problems can lead to a distortion of individual daily values.
The health authorities in Germany recently reported 48,327 new corona infections (previous week: 45,331) and 187 deaths (previous week: 173) to the RKI within one day. Here, too, comparisons of the data are only possible to a limited extent due to the test behavior, late registrations and transmission problems. In general, the number of registered new infections and deaths varies significantly from weekday to weekday, since many federal states do not transmit them to the RKI, especially at weekends, and report their cases later in the week.
The RKI has counted 36,860,998 detected infections with Sars-CoV-2 since the beginning of the pandemic. The actual total number is likely to be significantly higher, as many infections go undetected.
8:10 p.m .: According to data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the corona numbers in Hesse were 190.4 on Tuesday. A week earlier, the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants was 163.9 within seven days. According to the RKI, there have been more than 2.8 million proven corona cases in the state since the beginning of the pandemic.
It is assumed that the actual extent of Sars-CoV-2 infections is currently higher because there are fewer tests. In addition, only positive PCR tests are recorded by the health authorities. Late registrations can also lead to the distortion of daily values.
The number of deaths from or with corona disease rose by 58 to 11,786 in a weekly comparison. In which cases Covid-19 was the main cause of death and in which cases the patients died of other diseases but were also infected with the corona virus is not usually clear from the information provided by the hospitals.
The trend in the incidence of hospitalization was also upwards: the value rose from 4.51 in the previous week to 5.62, as announced by the Ministry of Social Affairs in Wiesbaden on Tuesday. The hospitalization incidence indicates how many people per 100,000 inhabitants were newly admitted to hospitals with a corona infection within seven days.
According to the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (Divi), there were 96 Covid 19 patients in the intensive care units in Hesse on Tuesday, 32 of whom had to be ventilated.
8 p.m.: The number of new corona infections per 100,000 inhabitants reported within seven days was 265.5 in North Rhine-Westphalia on Tuesday. This emerged from the figures published by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). Within 24 hours, 14,996 confirmed new cases and 49 deaths related to the corona virus were added. A week earlier, the seven-day incidence in NRW was 233.7. A reading of 268.8 had been reported four weeks earlier.
However, the information only provides a very incomplete picture of the number of infections. Experts have been assuming for some time that there will be a large number of cases not recorded by the RKI – mainly because not all infected people have a PCR test done. Only positive PCR tests count in the statistics. In addition, late registrations or transmission problems can lead to a distortion of individual daily values.
Tuesday, December 13, 7 a.m.: The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the nationwide seven-day incidence on Tuesday morning as 228.1. This is evident from numbers that reflect the status of the RKI dashboard at 5 a.m. The day before, the value of new corona infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week was 210.8 (previous week: 204.2; previous month: 222.2). However, this information only provides a very incomplete picture of the number of infections. Experts have been assuming for some time that there will be a large number of cases not recorded by the RKI – mainly because by far not all infected people have a PCR test done. Only positive PCR tests count in the statistics. In addition, late registrations and transmission problems can lead to a distortion of individual daily values.
The health authorities in Germany recently reported 53,745 new corona infections (previous week: 46,787) and 211 deaths (previous week: 188) to the RKI within one day. Here, too, comparisons of the data are only possible to a limited extent due to the test behavior, late registrations and transmission problems. In general, the number of registered new infections and deaths varies significantly from weekday to weekday, since many federal states do not transmit them to the RKI, especially at weekends, and report their cases later in the week.
The RKI has counted 36,812,671 infections with Sars-CoV-2 since the beginning of the pandemic. The actual total number is likely to be significantly higher, as many infections go undetected.
4.47 p.m .: Schleswig-Holstein will also abolish the mask requirement on buses and trains at the end of the year. The country wants to continue on the path towards normality bit by bit, said Prime Minister Daniel Günther (CDU) on Monday.
Monday, December 12, 6:20 a.m.: Three officers in Düsseldorf are demanding that their corona infection be recognized as an accident at work. The Düsseldorf administrative court will hear their complaints this Monday (10:00, 11:30 and 13:30).
A primary school teacher from Hünxe, a senior teacher from Moers and a tax officer from Remscheid have complained.
They were all ill with Covid-19 and want their infection to be recognized by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia as a work-related accident under the Civil Service Pensions Act. According to their statements, the plaintiffs are still suffering from the consequences today. One of them is said to have been on sick leave since the end of 2020.
The officials state that they became infected while doing their job: the elementary school teacher at a teachers’ conference, the high school teacher with two students and the tax officer at a staff council meeting. The plaintiffs could have become infected anywhere, argues the defendant state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Saturday, December 10th, 5:43 a.m .: The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the nationwide seven-day incidence on Saturday morning as 223.3. This is evident from numbers that reflect the status of the RKI dashboard at 5 a.m. The day before, the value of new corona infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week was 219.9 (previous week: 207.0; previous month: 262.3). However, this information only provides a very incomplete picture of the number of infections. Experts have been assuming for some time that there will be a large number of cases not recorded by the RKI – mainly because by far not all infected people have a PCR test done. Only positive PCR tests count in the statistics. In addition, late registrations or transmission problems can lead to a distortion of individual daily values.
The health authorities in Germany recently reported 32,865 new corona infections (previous week: 27,841) and 115 deaths (previous week: 89) to the RKI within one day. Here, too, comparisons of the data are only possible to a limited extent due to the test behavior, late registrations or transmission problems. In general, the number of registered new infections and deaths varies significantly from weekday to weekday, since many federal states do not transmit them to the RKI, especially at weekends, and report their cases later in the week.
The RKI has counted 36,758,926 infections with Sars-CoV-2 since the beginning of the pandemic. The actual total number is likely to be significantly higher, as many infections go undetected.
11:56 p.m .: The EU medicines agency EMA has warned of the dwindling effectiveness of several antibody-based corona drugs against the latest subvariants of the virus. Laboratory tests have shown that the affected preparations are “little effective in neutralizing the omicron subvariants BA.4.6, BA.2.75.2 and XBB,” said the Amsterdam-based authority on Friday.
So-called monoclonal antibodies, which are administered by injection or infusion in hospital, have so far helped to alleviate the symptoms of Covid-19 in numerous risk patients or sick people treated in hospital. Monoclonal antibodies are lab-made proteins that help the immune system fight Covid-19.
The most important antibody-based corona drugs include Evusheld from the British pharmaceutical manufacturer AstraZeneca, Ronapreve from the French group Roche and Xevudy, developed by the British company GlaxoSmithKline and the US company Vir.
The World Health Organization (WHO) had already recommended in September to stop using Xevudy and Ronapreve because they were no longer effective against new variants.
The EMA has now stated that the antibodies of these drugs also “did not significantly neutralize strains BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, which are expected to become the dominant subvariants in the EU in the coming weeks”.
According to the EMA, however, antiviral drugs such as Paxlovid from pharmaceutical manufacturer Pfizer should remain effective. EU member states should therefore set up a stockpile for high-risk patients.
The Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus has evolved into numerous variants since it appeared in China at the end of 2019. While earlier “variants of concern” such as alpha and delta eventually died down, the omicron variant and its subtypes have dominated infection activity throughout 2022.
You can read older news about the corona pandemic on the following pages.
What you need to know What you can do. (Advertisement)
