DThe nationwide seven-day incidence reported by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has exceeded the threshold of 1,100 for the first time. The RKI gave the value of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week on Saturday morning as 1,127.7. For comparison: the day before the value was 1073.0. A week ago, the nationwide incidence was 772.7 (previous month: 205.5). The health authorities in Germany reported 189,166 new corona infections to the RKI within one day – 39.6 percent more than a week ago.
Experts assume a high and increasing number of cases that are not recorded in the RKI data, partly because testing capacities and health authorities are at their limits in many places. In addition, some cities and districts have been reporting problems with the transmission of the number of corona cases for days.
On Thursday, the Robert Koch Institute announced that in addition to the seven-day incidence and the number of hospitalizations, the burden of disease should also be used as a central indicator for the assessment of the situation. To assess the pandemic situation, “the focus is not on recording all infections caused by SARS-CoV-2, but on the development of the number and severity of the diseases,” wrote the RKI in its weekly report published on Thursday.
Specifically, the experts have recently published estimates of those infected with Covid 19 symptoms of various degrees of severity in the weekly report. Specifically, there are also estimated values for cases below the hospital admissions threshold, such as the frequency of doctor visits: In the week to January 23, this was 280 per 100,000 inhabitants, in the previous week it was 178 according to the RKI.
For the third week of the year, it was also estimated “that around 1.3 to 2.3 percent of children and adolescents up to the age of 14 and 0.6 to 1.3 percent of the population aged 15 and over have Covid-19 with symptoms of a acute respiratory illness”. This information comes from various sources, such as information from the population. According to the new information, 182 deaths were recorded within 24 hours across Germany. A week ago there were 179 deaths. The RKI has counted 9,618,245 infections with Sars-CoV-2 since the beginning of the pandemic.
There are still large regional differences in the seven-day incidence. In Berlin, the incidence is 1,864.0 (in Berlin Tempelhof-Schoeneberg at 2,922.1). In Saxony (597.8) and Thuringia (420.8) the incidence values are much lower.
Rising hospital admissions
The number of corona-infected patients who came to clinics per 100,000 inhabitants within seven days was 4.72 (Thursday 4.64) according to the RKI. These may also include people with a positive corona test who have another main illness. The RKI gave the number of recovered people on Saturday as 7,532,600. The number of people who died from or involved a proven infection with Sars-CoV-2 rose to 117,666.