News about the corona pandemic – the hospital company advocates corona measures by the end of February

News about Corona from December 28, 2022

Hospital company advocates corona measures by the end of February

Wednesday, December 28 at 10:36 am: The German Hospital Society (DKG) advocates maintaining the existing corona protection measures until the end of February. Until then, you should be patient, said the CEO Gerald Gass on Wednesday the broadcaster “Welt”. “I can understand that the minister (Karl Lauterbach (SPD)) warns in this overall situation against simply giving up everything overnight”. There are good reasons to remain cautious. “That’s why our appeal to the population to support the protective measures is definitely until the end of February, that’s our forecast.”

Gaß referred to a currently “very tense” situation in the hospitals, due to a relatively large number of patients with infectious diseases and at the same time high staff shortages. Masks also protected against other infections, he said. Influenza is currently the most preoccupying of the clinics, ahead of Corona and the RS virus in children and adolescents.

Lauterbach towards the immediate end of all corona measures

1:11 p.m.: Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach rejects a quick lifting of the corona measures that still exist. “An immediate end to all measures would be reckless and is not demanded by Christian Drosten either,” the SPD politician told the German Press Agency on Tuesday. Drosten, the head of virology at the Berlin University Hospital Charité, said in an interview with the “Tagesspiegel”: “We are experiencing the first endemic wave with Sars-Cov-2 this winter, in my opinion the pandemic is over”. In response, Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP) called for “the last corona protection measures” to be ended.

“Christian Drosten is right that we have entered the endemic state of the corona waves, the waves only affect parts of the population,” said Lauterbach. Nevertheless, it is now still important to protect the people who are particularly at risk, for example by using masks in care facilities or by isolating at work. “The clinics are full, the staff is overwhelmed, excess mortality is high and winter is not over yet.”

“Normality instead of alarmism”: Union calls for a special conference to lift the corona measures

12:47 p.m.: In view of the statements by virologist Christian Drosten about the near end of the pandemic, the Union called for a special conference of the federal and state governments in early January to end the majority of corona protection measures nationwide: “It’s time to finally declare the pandemic over. The traffic light must no longer shy away from this primarily political decision,” said the health policy spokesman for the Union parliamentary group, Tino Sorge (CDU), the editorial network Germany (RND/Wednesday). “Europe is going back to normal, only the traffic light government does not have the courage to finally end most of the corona measures – as other countries have long since done.”

The CDU politician added: “A conference of the Federal Chancellor with the heads of government of the federal states at the beginning of January would be the appropriate format to coordinate such a step together with the federal states,” said Sorge. “This issue requires political leadership and a federally coordinated decision,” he said. With a few exceptions, mask and isolation requirements must be replaced by recommendations for the new year.

“Special protective measures are only appropriate in the health sector and in nursing, i.e. in vulnerable areas and groups,” said the health politician. The high immunity and the mostly mild courses showed that Corona no longer posed a significant risk in this country. In such a situation, the state must finally withdraw its interventions. “We have to leave Corona behind us. Normality instead of alarmism must be the maxim of the Federal Minister of Health.”

Green health expert calms fears of new wave of infections China

Tuesday, December 27, 8:40 a.m.: With a view to fears of a new wave of corona infections from China, the Green health expert Janosch Dahmen has expressed confidence. “Germany is (…) much better prepared for the winter than it was in the past two years, also thanks to the vaccines that have been adapted again and many booster vaccinations. That also helps us with a view to the situation in China,” said Dahmen of the Düsseldorf “Rheinische Post” (Tuesday).

Nevertheless, it makes sense “if we protect ourselves more consistently here on site with masks, distance and ventilation and keep infection chains short not only with Corona, but also with influenza and RSV,” he said, also with regard to the many staff shortages in the healthcare.

In China, it is becoming clear that the fight against corona cannot be won with protective measures alone, explained the health policy spokesman for the Greens. “Without the vaccination, we would probably have had more than a million deaths in Germany by now,” said Dahmen.

In view of the exploding number of infections in China, the foreign policy spokesman for the Union faction, Jürgen Hardt (CDU), called for all flight connections between Germany and the People’s Republic to be stopped on Friday. The situation in China threatens “the whole world with a new wave of infections,” he told the editorial network Germany. The Federal Ministry of Transport had rejected the initiative.

China wants to open borders – quarantine should be abolished

5:15 p.m.: After the end of the strict zero-Covid policy, China wants to open the borders to travelers from abroad on January 8th. For the first time since the pandemic, quarantine will no longer be necessary, according to several international media, citing the National Health Commission. All restrictions on international flights would also be lifted.

China is currently struggling with an enormous wave of infections. Since the weekend, the KP regime around President Xi has stopped publishing all corona data. Experts expect the country with a population of 1.4 billion to be infected and at least 1 million dead. The protection of the population is very low due to the ban on foreign vaccines and low resilience. Buschmann calls for the end of all corona protection measures

3:10 p.m.: After statements by virologist Christian Drosten about an end to the corona pandemic, Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann has called for all protective measures to be phased out. “Christian #Drosten was one of the most cautious scientists in the #pandemic,” wrote the FDP politician on Twitter on Monday. “Now his conclusion is: The pandemic is over. We are in the endemic state. As a political consequence, we should end the last #corona protection measures,” Buschmann demanded.

Virologist Drosten: Corona pandemic is over

12.20 p.m.: According to virologist Christian Drosten, the corona pandemic is over. “This winter we are experiencing the first endemic wave with Sars-CoV-2, in my opinion the pandemic is over,” said the head of virology at the Berlin University Hospital Charité of the “Tagesspiegel”.

After this winter, the immunity of the population will be so broad and resilient that the virus will hardly be able to get through in the summer. The only limitation mentioned by virology was another mutational leap. “But I don’t expect that anymore at the moment either.” From the 50-year-old’s point of view, the vaccination campaigns in Germany and Europe in particular were decisive for the end of the pandemic.

Drosten defended the measures to contain the virus: “It was never about stopping the pandemic, it was clear from the start that this was not possible. But if nothing had been done, then in Germany in the waves up to Delta there would have been a million deaths or more. So you had to reduce contacts.”

Several experts, such as the chairman of the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko), Thomas Mertens, now share the assessment that Corona is now an endemic. In his view, a pandemic is primarily defined by the fact that a globally unknown pathogen with which people have no immunological experience breaks into the population. That is no longer the case, Mertens said at the end of October.

Member of the Corona Expert Council: Pandemic over after this winter

Monday 26 December 2022 01:31: Corona expert council member Christian Karagiannidis expects that the corona pandemic can be declared over after this winter. “I firmly expect that the pandemic will now increasingly expire,” he told the editorial network Germany (RND / Monday). “Certainly we will experience one or the other small wave. But we notice that the immunity level of the population is solid and we have significantly fewer Covid patients in the intensive care units,” said Karagiannidis, who is President of the German Society for Internal Intensive Care Medicine and Emergency Medicine.

He thinks it is unlikely that a dangerous corona variant will spread again in Germany. “We are in a very favorable scenario right now and I don’t think we’ll get a really dangerous variant again.” The defense against corona viruses apparently works very well, he says with regard to the immunity through antibodies and T cells. “We see that the number of serious illnesses is decreasing more and more. I don’t think we’ll see a setback again.”

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