Public health officers: End of the warning function for the Corona app justified

News about Corona from April 30, 2023

EU health authority draws lessons from the corona pandemic

Tuesday, May 02, 2023, 8:00 p.m.: The EU health authority ECDC draws a number of insights from the protracted corona pandemic. To enable countries to better prepare for future pandemics or other emergencies, the Stockholm-based authority identified four areas where lessons can be learned from the Corona period. These include the benefits of investing in the health workforce, better preparedness for the next health crisis, risk communication and community engagement, and data collection and analysis, according to an ECDC report published on Tuesday.

All these areas are closely linked, stressed the ECDC. As the pandemic moves towards a phase of reduced intensity, the report aims to highlight follow-up actions that could contribute to improved pandemic preparedness in Europe.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has taught us valuable lessons and it is important to review and evaluate our actions to see what has worked and what has not,” said ECDC Germany Director Andrea Ammon. There is a need to be better prepared for future health crises, for example by strengthening the health workforce, better surveillance of infectious diseases and promoting cooperation between organizations, countries and regions.

The Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus reached Europe at the beginning of 2020 and then spread extremely quickly. Numerous countries initially reacted with significant restrictions on public life and the closure of their borders. Thanks to the record-breaking development of corona vaccines, it was ultimately possible to largely push back the virus in 2022.

warning function of Corona-App expires

Sunday, April 30, 2023, 3:50 p.m.: The function for mutual warnings in the federal corona app, which has been used millions of times, will expire on Sunday. As of this Monday, it will no longer be possible to warn others after a positive test and receive a red alert after “risk encounters”, as announced by the Federal Ministry of Health. In view of the more relaxed corona situation, the app should then go into “sleep mode” on June 1 and will no longer be updated for the time being. But you can keep them on your cell phone to continue using electronic vaccination certificates.

According to the app makers, there were a total of a good nine million people who used the app to issue more than 270 million warnings after a positive test. Since it was launched on June 16, 2020, the app has been downloaded more than 48 million times, and up to 35 million have actively used the application. The distance and duration of encounters between smartphones with an installed app were determined. According to the ministry, the app can be “awakened” from sleep mode promptly if the pandemic situation becomes more critical again.

Corona-Review: Virologist Klaus Stöhr accuses politicians of refusal

Saturday, April 29, 9:26 am: The virologist Klaus Stöhr criticizes the unwillingness of the traffic light coalition to review the corona policy. Stöhr told the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” (NOZ): “My impression is that the parties desperately hope not to be responsible for the government in the next pandemic. I can’t explain my refusal otherwise. I have no understanding for that. “You have to desperately draw the right conclusions from the past in order to be better prepared for the next pandemic.”

Stöhr firmly rejects fears, such as those expressed by Greens health expert Janosch Dahmen, that a reappraisal could further divide society. “If Mr. Dahmen is afraid of the critical discourse, he probably shouldn’t have gone into politics. Every analysis potentially also leads to an argument: also a backward-looking pandemic processing. But that is also necessary.”

Stöhr is one of the initiators of a letter from numerous doctors and other experts to the federal government calling for a systematic scientific review of the corona policy. “There is a social and political responsibility to learn from the pandemic. You also owe it to the taxpayer, who contributed about 5,300 euros per capita to the measures. Anyone who doesn’t want to learn from their mistakes will repeat them,” Stöhr told the NOZ.

The aim of such a commission should be “to bring Germany’s pandemic plan up to date”. “It can’t be that those responsible have to fall back on the current plan in the next pandemic. The costs of not doing this will be much higher than the expenses for a commission,” Stöhr warned. A selective processing, such as with the current school studies, is not enough.

Statutory health insurance physicians see the establishment of longCovid-Anchor centers critical

7.55 p.m.: The Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KV) is critical of the Rhineland-Palatinate state government’s plans to set up five anchor centers for people with long or post-Covid. “We’re not resisting it,” said KV CEO Peter Heinz on Thursday, but there were no doctors, money or meaningful treatments.

“We see a lot of people with serious consequences. However, the symptoms are totally inconsistent and colourful.” The right treatment is still unclear and “a structure without knowing what I have to do is not so conclusive”. It makes more sense to have the patients treated by the appropriate specialist first, depending on their symptoms. “For most of them, however, it develops for the better over time,” emphasized general practitioner Heinz.

Not only doctors were missing for the anchor centers, but also medical staff, said KV board member and psychotherapist Peter Andreas Staub. The financing is also unclear, the health insurance companies have not yet answered the KV, but the ministry expects the insurance companies and the KV to agree, said the deputy chairman of the board and anesthetist, Andreas Bartels. The state government’s planned EUR 50,000 per anchor center is just a drop in the bucket. Bartels spoke out in favor of controlling general practitioners and creating networks of medical specialists. According to the Ministry of Health, around 80,000 people in Rhineland-Palatinate suffer from long or post-Covid symptoms.

Medical officers: end of the warning function Coronaapp justified

Thursday, April 27, 10:30 a.m.: From the point of view of the medical officers, the end of the warnings via the federal corona app on May 1st is justified. The app was “a useful tool” for pointing out possible transmissions of infection in good time and then arranging tests, the Federal Association of Doctors in the Public Health Service explained at the request of the German Press Agency. At present, there are hardly any serious illnesses. The risk of having to be treated in intensive care because of a corona infection is extremely low. “In this respect, it is justified to turn off the warning function.”

As it also says in a user information in the app, it is only possible up to and including this Sunday to warn others after a positive test and to receive warnings about “risk encounters”. The app should then go into “sleep mode” on June 1 and, according to the Federal Ministry of Health, will no longer be updated for the time being. But you can keep them on your cell phone to continue using electronic vaccination certificates.

The Association of Medical Officers reported that the app had helped reduce the number of transmissions of infections. She also gave directions for action. “But the benefit should still be evaluated.” According to the app makers, there were a total of a good nine million people who, after a positive test, used the app to issue more than 270 million warnings. Since it was launched on June 16, 2020, the app has been downloaded more than 48 million times and up to 35 million have actively used the application.

The digital industry association Bitkom described the app as a “success story made in Germany”. President Achim Berg said: “It saved human lives and was constantly being further developed and supplemented by many useful additional functions.” It was extremely compliant with data protection, and the publication of its source code ensured transparency. It is important that the app can be quickly woken up from sleep mode if the worst comes to the worst.

The Association of Medical Officers explained that in the current situation “without any significant risk potential for public health” due to the Omicron variant, the breaking of infection chains is no longer a priority. Investigations were therefore still carried out in health authorities for orientation and assessment of the situation, but no longer comprehensively. Corona reports were still received to a very small extent. Monitoring data from the wastewater and the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) would therefore probably give a better overview of the infection process than PCR results that are received by the authorities.

You can read older news about the corona pandemic on the following pages.