Corona situation
RKI boss warns: “We are really going to have a very bad Christmas”
Christmas could turn out differently this year than we are used to.
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The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reports new record numbers almost every day. For the first time, they now reported more than 60,000 new infections within a day. RKI boss Lothar Wieler made it clear with an emotional angry speech: the situation is serious.
“The under-recording of the real numbers is increasing”, said Lothar Wieler on Wednesday evening in an online discussion with the Saxon Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer. What is meant is the increasing number of unregistered corona infections. Wieler assumes that the reported numbers hide twice or three times as many unreported cases.
Lothar Wieler: There could be hundreds of deaths in the coming weeks
The number of new infections is currently increasing so strongly that, according to the RKI boss, there could soon be hundreds of deaths every day. Most recently, 0.8 percent of the sick died. That means: of more than 50,000 infected people per day, 400 could die in the coming weeks. “There is nothing more that can be done about that,” says Wieler.
! We are in dire straits at the moment. We will really have a very bad Christmas if we don’t take countermeasures now, “the RKI boss continued. The length of time in the hospitals would also get worse and worse:” We have never been as worried as we are now. “The problem: the number the seriously ill Covid patient: inside, for people with a stroke or heart attack, there is hardly an intensive care bed available in some places.
The RKI had already warned of the all-out fourth wave in July
Wieler accuses politics of major omissions. The RKI issued very clear recommendations for action at an early stage and warned that the fourth wave could clearly surpass all previous ones if no “population-related measures” were taken. The main problem is that the vaccination rate is too low. The scenarios modeled by the RKI have now actually arrived.
“We opened too quickly in too many areas,” criticized Wieler. “Clubs and bars are hotspots, from my point of view they have to be closed.” Major events would have to be canceled and contact restrictions reintroduced.
“Every man and mouse who can vaccinate should kindly vaccinate now”
“We really shouldn’t give those who don’t get vaccinated the chance to bypass the vaccination, for example by getting tested,” he said. In order to increase the vaccination rate, vaccination should also be carried out in pharmacies.
“I will now say this very clearly: It must now be the end of the story that someone does not allow any other professional group to vaccinate due to any circumstances. We are in an emergency, ”he emphasized. “Every man and mouse who can vaccinate should kindly vaccinate now. Otherwise we won’t get this crisis under control. “
Sources used: zeit.de, tagesschau.de, spiegel.de