++ Corona-News: Members of the "Gorch Fock" crew infected

Corona continues to determine everyday life in Germany and the world. The number of infections is increasing. The most important things at a glance.

Update, 4.15 p.m.: The corona virus has now also reached the sailing training ship “Gorch Fock”. A spokesman for the Navy said that eight crew members had a positive test result. Those affected either had no symptoms or only mild symptoms and were isolated on board. The entire crew is vaccinated. The barque is currently in the port of Santa Cruz on the Canary Island of Tenerife. The arrival of the officer candidates for the planned training trip has been postponed.

It is not yet clear whether the infections are the omicron variant. “We are still waiting for the results of further tests,” the newspaper Kieler Nachrichten quoted a marine spokesman. Only when all soldiers on board have tested negative should embarkation of the officer candidates begin. According to the Navy, the schedule for the training should be adhered to despite the delay, the training goal is not endangered.

Almost 20 women and men were identified as contact persons, according to the spokesman. They all tested negative and are in quarantine in a hotel. Over the holidays, some members of the regular crew were in the home, others had visits from their families.

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Corona: Karl Lauterbach announces new measures

Update, 10:00 a.m.: At the Corona summit, the measures to combat the pandemic are to be adjusted. A change in the rules on vaccination status is also probably part of the debate. Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach * also announced “new measures”.

In the future, only boosted people should be considered fully vaccinated. In other words: only those who have received three corona vaccinations are considered fully vaccinated – and enjoy the associated rights, for example not having to show a negative test in certain areas.

Corona-News: Bonus for nurses should come – but not for everyone

Update from Wednesday, January 5th, 2022, 8.45 a.m.: Karl Lauterbach wants to grant the planned care bonus only to a limited group of care workers. “The care bonus should be paid primarily to care workers who were particularly stressed in the corona pandemic,” said the Federal Minister of Health to the editorial network Germany. “Then the bonus can also be set in a significant amount.”

This is the only way to appreciate the special performance of nursing staff, some of whom have also “taken personal risk”. The new traffic light government made up of the SPD, Greens and FDP has agreed a corona bonus for care workers in the coalition agreement. The federal government wants to make one billion euros available for this.

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Corona: Maaßen defends vaccination criticism and reports vaccination damage

+++ 11 p.m.: The former President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maaßen, defends himself against demands for his exclusion from the CDU. In a letter to other party members, about which the portal The Pioneer reported on Tuesday (January 4th, 2022) and which is also available to the German Press Agency, Maaßen defended that he had shared a video of a vaccination critic on the Internet. He pointed out that he had suffered vaccine damage as a child: at the age of five he had to undergo emergency surgery after a vaccination, and a year later after a combination vaccination a second time.

Schleswig-Holstein’s Education Minister Karin Prien, who is also a member of the CDU federal executive board, called for Maassen’s exclusion on Sunday. Maaßen sees his freedom of expression attacked and writes: “If I post a video of a professor who is seriously worried about the contamination of the mRNA vaccines, I am exercising my basic right to freedom of expression.” In the letter, the CDU explains politicians also that the vaccination is a tried and tested means against a serious disease like Covid-19. The state is also obliged to take the concerns of the unvaccinated seriously.

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Update from Tuesday, January 4th, 2022, 5:25 p.m.: A team of researchers from the University of Hong Kong found that Omikron replicates 70 times faster in the human airways than the delta variant. It therefore gets into the windpipe and bronchi much faster than Delta or the original Corona variant. In the lung tissue itself, however, it then replicates more slowly – and more than ten times more slowly than the first variant of the corona virus, according to the results of the study. This effect could be the reason for the less severe disease progression with Omikron *.

Corona in Germany: Omicron variant continues to spread

First report from Tuesday, January 4th, 2022: Corona continues to determine everyday life in Germany and the world *. Around the globe, the number of cases is rising again at the beginning of the year. The omicron variant of the virus is primarily responsible for this. The fourth wave, determined by the Delta variant *, reached its peak around the Christmas holidays in 2021. At the same time, warnings were given about the start of the fifth wave, which will be driven by Omikron.

After Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony and Hamburg, Omikron has now also become the dominant Corona variant in Baden Württemberg. A current query at the laboratories shows that the Omikron variant is already detected in over 50 percent of all corona diagnoses, said a spokesman for the Ministry of Social Affairs in Stuttgart. It can therefore be expected in 7 to 14 days at the latest that the vast majority of infections in the country will be due to Omikron.

On Friday, January 7th, the federal and state governments will come together again for a corona summit. At the Prime Minister’s Conference (MPK), new measures in the fight against the pandemic are to be decided. The quarantine rule, among other things, could possibly be adjusted. For some people, these could be shorter in the future. (lrg / na) * fr.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.

Picture list: © Arturo Jimenez / dpa