“Fundamentals Change”
CSU demands omicron check for corona rules
01/21/2022, 07:40 am
How much is Omikron changing the corona situation in Germany? Because of the new virus variant, the CSU wants to put the previous procedure in the pandemic to the test. On Monday, the federal and state governments will again discuss further protective measures. An industry representative warns of the increasing burden on the clinics.
Before top-level consultations by the federal and state governments and with a view to the Omicron variant, the CSU is pushing for a reassessment of the corona measures. “It is true that the fundamentals are changing with Omikron. We need an Omikron check for the corona management in Germany,” said CSU General Secretary Markus Blume of the “Welt”. “The upcoming Prime Ministers’ Conference can be an important milestone to talk about these things.”
The federal and state governments want to discuss protective measures in the Corona crisis on Monday. The very contagious Sars-CoV-2 variant Omikron has now established itself in Germany. It causes a sharp increase in the number of new infections. The nationwide 7-day incidence reported by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) exceeded the threshold of 700 for the first time. The RKI gave the value of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week this Friday as 706.3. However, the omicron variant tends to be associated with milder courses than the delta variant. Countries like Spain are therefore considering changing the corona strategy, also because the number of corona intensive care patients is not increasing as it is at Delta.
Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil is also an advocate for this. He is against easing, but the massive increase in incidence “already played a role, but we have to rethink a bit compared to the previous waves of infection,” said the SPD politician in the ARD “Morgenmagazin”. The number of infections is high, but the clinics are less burdened. “We’re dealing with a new opponent, so you have to adjust your strategy accordingly.” Weil said, “We must not let the pandemic slip away.” At the same time, given the changed situation, he spoke out against a “total lockdown”. Above all, the hospitalization and the situation in the intensive care units are “not yet causing him to ponder”, even if the number of infections is increasing from day to day.
Because warned not to fool yourself. After the Omicron variant, the virus will not be out of the world: “We will have to deal with new virus forms.” Only a high vaccination rate in society as a whole offers serious protection: “We won’t be able to do that at the pace we are now at.” He spoke out clearly against the so-called contamination, which was cynical and meant that many people would end up in intensive care units and die.
The Greens health expert Janosch Dahmen also emphasized that Omikron is milder, but not harmless. Dahmen also warned against hasty steps. “We have to react appropriately,” emphasized CSU boss Markus Söder on Thursday evening on ZDF. But: “I think we have a new situation now. And part of a wise policy is not simply to react stubbornly or ideologically, or even to be personally motivated, but always to put the well-being of the country and the people in the foreground.” He hopes that Omicron will point the way to an endemic situation.
Hundreds of thousands of new infections expected every day
Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach expects a stress test for the hospitals in mid or late February. According to the SPD politician, Germany will then be confronted with several hundred thousand newly infected people every day. The CEO of the German Hospital Society, Gerald Gass, told the editorial network Germany: “Looking at the numbers, the load in the intensive care unit seems to be decreasing, but the load in the normal ward remains high or even increases significantly.” This was made clear by the first figures from the federal states particularly affected by Omikron.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) expects that the maximum deflection of the omicron wave in Germany cannot be precisely measured by reporting data. “However, the magnitude and the decisive trends in the epidemiological development are reliably displayed,” wrote the RKI in its Corona weekly report. The background to the temporarily incomplete recording of infected people is, for example, limited test capacities and human resources due to the high number of cases, it was said.
In order to prevent future corona waves in particular, Chancellor Olaf Scholz advocates the introduction of a general obligation to vaccinate in addition to the facility-related obligation to vaccinate from mid-March. There will be a parliamentary orientation debate on this next week. The President of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI), Gernot Marx, warned in the editorial network Germany: “There is no alternative to compulsory vaccination for adults in order to leave the pandemic behind in the long term.”
Worry about absenteeism from nursing staff
The Federal Association of Private Providers of Social Services (BPA) meanwhile warned of a possible staff shortage. “We are getting more and more feedback from the member companies that employees intend to resign in view of the upcoming facility-related vaccination requirement,” said BPA President Bernd Meurer to the editorial network Germany. Care companies in regions with high incidences and low vaccination rates are particularly affected. “In many federal states that are particularly badly affected, we cannot guarantee that care can be maintained everywhere. If large numbers of nursing staff are absent, the care of those in need of care is directly at risk.”
The chairman of the German Depression Aid Foundation, Ulrich Heberl, pointed out in the Funke newspapers: “Especially for people who suffer from a depressive illness, the course of the disease has worsened massively as a result of the measures against Corona, on the one hand because of the significant cuts in their medical care and on the other hand because of a collapsing everyday structure with retreat to bed, more brooding and less sport.”