In Germany, the number of new Coronavirus infections has decreased substantially, along with the Incidence Numbers. But the number of related deaths is still high and the overall situation remains difficult.
Berlin, January 29th, 2021. Update: 10:15 a.m. (The Berlin Spectator) — According to the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, 14,022 individuals were infected with the Coronavirus in the past 24 hours. Last Friday, there were some 3,800 more new cases. Germany’s Seven Day Incidence Number dropped to 94.4. Obviously, there is a long way to go, down to below 50, but things are moving in the right direction.
Corona Hotspots
What the federal states are concerned, there are still big differences. Thuringia has the highest Incidence Number of them all, namely 171.7. Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg and Saxony still have rather high Incidence Numbers. They stand at 166.1, 140.2 and 131.4, respectively. Especially in those Corona hotspots, these numbers are dropping, while they are remaining where they are in other regions, as Professor Lothar Wieler of the Robert Koch Institute said earlier today.
In Berlin, a former hotspot, only four out of twelve districts are slightly above 100. They are Mitte, Spandau, Neukölln and Treptow-Köpenick. The overall Incidence Number for Berlin is 95.3 right now. This is a clear improvement. At the same time, the number of Corona patients in the capital’s hospitals is still quite high. There are 1,397 of them. As many as 382 of them are in intensive care, 284 are connected to respirators.
Outbreak at Airbus
The number of Corona-related deaths is still far too high. Since yesterday, 839 Corona patients died in Germany, 31 of them in Berlin. The total number of Corona deaths since the first Corona case was reported in this country 367 days ago is 55,752.
Germany still fears those new, more contagious Corona variants. More and more cases are being reported. At the Airbus factory in Hamburg, seven employee tested positive for the British Corona mutation. It is being called that way because this variant was identified in Britain first, where it also started spreading rapidly. The variant’s official name is B.1.1.7.. Five hundred Airbus staff members are now in quarantine.
Vaccines Delivery Issue
Earlier, an outbreak of the same mutation at a kindergarten in Freiburg was reported. As a result, the federal state of Baden-Württemberg postponed the official reopening of its kindergartens and schools yet again. In the same state, there are already 115 Corona mutant infections. Fifty-eight of them are B.1.1.7 cases. The new South African Corona variant was reported 19 times so far. The other mutant infections still need to be identified.
In the ongoing argument with the pharmaceutical company Astra Zeneca, the European Commission is not letting the vaccines manufacturer off the hook. Ursula von der Leyen, the Commission’s President, told ‘Deutschlandfunk’ radio, binding orders had been made and the signed contract was “crystal clear”. Delivery numbers for the first, second and third quarters of 2021 had been defined. Earlier, Astra Zeneca had disputed the delivery numbers were firm and announced it would deliver a lot less vaccine doses than originally planned.
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