Although not all corona infections are registered by the RKI for a long time, there are signs of an increase in the number of new infections reported. General practitioners complain that the demand for vaccinations is at a low level.
Berlin – The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the nationwide seven-day incidence on Wednesday morning as 264.6. 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 259.0 (previous week: 236.2; previous month: 289.8).
Incomplete picture of infection numbers
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 the distortion of individual daily values.
The health authorities in Germany recently reported 56,715 new corona infections (previous week: 51,299) and 90 deaths (previous week: 109) 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 32,797,308 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.
Hope for more vaccinations
The general practitioners hope that the preliminary recommendation of the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) will give a new impetus to what they believe to be the current rather poor corona vaccination campaign. After the approval of the vaccines adapted to the Omicron variant, Stiko spoke out on Tuesday for their preferred use in booster vaccinations. “This creates trust and is a prerequisite for bringing the topic of corona vaccinations even more actively to the population,” said the national chairman of the German Association of General Practitioners, Markus Beier, to the newspapers of the Funke media group. However, Stiko still only recommends a fourth vaccination for certain groups, such as people over 60 years of age.
Although the demand for vaccinations in practices is increasing, compared to previous vaccination campaigns it is still at a rather low level, Beier complained. So far, only “almost a quarter of those over 60” have decided to have a fourth vaccination. In order to increase the vaccination rate, general practitioners would also need political support. This includes, among other things, “that the vaccine deliveries finally take place reliably”.
Vaccinations can be obtained from the family doctor
Even with the approval of the new vaccine adapted to the Omicron variants BA.1, BA.4 and BA.5, Beier sees no need to start up vaccination centers again. “Parallel structures, such as those created with vaccination centers, are definitely no longer needed – especially in times when resources and money have to be saved,” Beier told the editorial network Germany (RND). Patients could receive the vaccinations from their general practitioners.
The FDP health politician Andrew Ullmann advises citizens over 60 to double vaccination against the corona variants and the flu virus. “Particularly vulnerable groups should protect themselves with both vaccinations this year,” he told the “Augsburger Allgemeine”. “The flu wave has failed in the last two years and will probably come back this year.” dpa
