Dozens dead from heat stroke
47 degrees! In India it is already too hot to survive
People in India use umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun.
© Pacific Press / Rahul Sadhukhan / Picture Alliance
News that moves us in May: Dozens of deaths from heat stroke +++ RKI recommends reducing the isolation time to 5 days +++ RKI reports no deaths for the first time
The most important news in the BRIGITTE ticker
What moves the world? What moves the BRIGITTE editors? In this ticker we summarize the most important news for you in May.
6 May. 2022
Dozens dead from heat stroke
47 degrees Celsius – that’s how hot it is in India and Pakistan at the moment. It’s very unusual this early in the year. In the western Indian state of Maharashtra, 25 people have died from heat stroke since the end of March, a state spokesman announced, according to “Zeit Online”. There have not been so many deaths from the heat for more than five years. Most of the victims lived in the countryside. The temperatures are constantly above 40 degrees. In the eastern Indian state of Odisha, 43.2 degrees were last measured. According to official information, hundreds of people have already been treated for heat-related health problems in the Bay of Bengal. A 64-year-old died of heat stroke.
The heat not only affects the human body, but also partially paralyzes the electronics. Power outages are common in some parts of India, leaving fans and air conditioners inoperable. Scientists have attributed the early onset of hot temperatures to climate change. According to the researchers, more than a billion people in India and Pakistan are at risk from the extreme heat. The heat waves are becoming more frequent, hotter and they start earlier in the year. Australia and South America only experienced record temperatures in January, and in March around 40 degrees more were measured in Antarctica than would otherwise be expected at this time of year.
May 3, 2022
RKI recommends reducing the isolation time to 5 days
The prescribed isolation for infected people can usually end after five days in the future – but a negative test is “urgently” recommended, according to the new guidelines published by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) on Monday evening. Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach confirmed that the isolation should continue to be ordered by the health authorities – even if they are already often reaching their limits.
In the future, contact persons of infected people should be strongly recommended to reduce contacts for five days and to isolate themselves if possible. So far, infected people have had to be isolated for ten days, after seven days you can test yourself free with a negative test if you have been symptom-free for 48 hours. For contact persons, the length of the quarantine is regulated according to the respective vaccination status.
Infected people who are still positive on day five of infection should test themselves daily until the test is negative. If the test is still positive on the fifth day, then the isolation period applies beyond the five days, according to Lauterbach. The isolation does not end automatically after five days. For employees in the healthcare and nursing sectors, free testing after five days should be mandatory and not just recommended.
The federal states are now determining how the RKI’s recommendation will be implemented. Lauterbach made it clear that most federal states should also implement this directive. Several countries have already announced new regulations.
May 2, 2022
Corona pandemic: No deaths reported for the first time
The number of corona infections is falling. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported 4,032 new infections within 24 hours. That is a total of 16,052 fewer cases than on Monday a week ago. The nationwide seven-day incidence falls from 666.4 to 639.5. For the first time since September, the RKI has not reported any new deaths. According to information from “Zeit Online”, 24.86 million people in Germany have been infected with the corona virus since the beginning of the pandemic. 135,960 people have died related to the virus.
However, the current data should be treated with caution, because the data situation is partially incomplete. So there could still be late registrations. The problem: The test capacities and health authorities are at the limit. Contacts can only be traced to a limited extent. Many infections are often no longer confirmed by a PCR test in a laboratory – these are then missing from the official statistics.
Sources used: zeit.de, faz.de
Any more news?
That was the news in April.