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

News about Corona from April 27, 2023

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 courses of the disease. 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 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 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 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.” In doing so, 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.

Many calls to the information hotline about corona vaccination complaints

Tuesday, April 25, 8:05 a.m.: Almost 2,000 people have reported health problems after a corona vaccination to a telephone hotline. “The experiences of the hotline show that the psychological strain on some people is enormous and that it was therefore right to create an offer of information,” said Bavaria’s Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU) on Tuesday. The calls come not only from Bavaria, but also from many other federal states.

The Free State launched the so-called Post-Vac hotline at the beginning of the month. Up to 15 employees from the State Office for Health and Food Safety in Erlangen provide telephone advice. After an initial rush in the first week of sometimes more than 400 calls per day, the inquiries have now leveled off in a double-digit range per day, according to the ministry.

According to the ministry, not enough is known about the so-called post-vac syndrome. Symptoms that are similar to those of post- or long-Covid can occur. “Therefore, we urgently need more intensive research on this complex of topics,” warned Holetschek. The conference of health ministers therefore asked the federal government to intensify research on this.

Holetschek emphasized that the post-vac syndrome should be distinguished from the vaccination damage after a corona vaccination. These are very rare: In Bavaria, 90 vaccination damages are known to date, compared to around 29 million Covid 19 vaccinations.

Health insurance companies do not yet accept corona vaccinations everywhere

Sunday, April 23, 6:00 a.m.: After the end of the crisis rules that have been in force for a long time, corona vaccinations are not yet available directly at health insurance companies in all federal states. The necessary remuneration agreements were initially only decided in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Thuringia, Westphalia-Lippe and Saarland, as the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV) announced at the request of the German Press Agency. Where the reimbursement of costs has not yet been regulated, such as in North Rhine-Westphalia and Berlin, patients will first receive a private bill, which they can then submit to their statutory health insurance company for reimbursement.

At Easter, the organization of the corona vaccinations switched from the previous crisis mode to regular care in the practices. According to the information, the remuneration for this is regulated at the state level between the associations of statutory health insurance physicians and health insurance companies.

The framework for entitlement to free vaccinations is now a guideline based on the recommendations of the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko). According to a federal ordinance, vaccinations are still possible at health insurance costs if a doctor deems it medically necessary. Vaccination, which was once in high demand, has been sluggish for a long time.

Drosten: Population immunity led to the end of the pandemic

Saturday, April 22, 9:37 a.m.: According to the Berlin virologist Christian Drosten, population-wide immunity against the corona virus has led to the end of the corona pandemic in Germany. “We are now in a situation across the population that we are immune. That is population immunity and that is why the pandemic is over now, ”said Drosten at an event of the Research Network for Zoonotic Infectious Diseases on Friday in Berlin.

The Charité professor emphasized that the pandemic is not over because the omicron variant is mild. “Omicron is not mild. That’s just a public misrepresentation,” said Drosten. “What puts us in a better situation is the vaccination in particular and then the possibility of finally being able to infect ourselves on the basis of the vaccination without dying.” The so-called hybrid immunity protects perfectly against severe courses. Hybrid immunity is when a person is both vaccinated and infected, or has recovered.

Drosten had already commented on the end of the pandemic in an interview at the end of 2022, but then felt misunderstood. In the “Coronavirus Update” podcast on NDR-Info, the virologist said in January that he actually said something different than what was received by parts of the public. The end of the pandemic cannot be announced in advance, you can only look at it afterwards – i.e. after this wave.

Study: Pandemic continues to put a heavy strain on the psyche of Germans

Thursday, April 20, 06:08: According to a study, the corona pandemic still has a strong impact on the mental health of Germans. This applies in particular to families and 18 to 30 year olds. In addition, inflation and increased living costs as well as the Ukraine war put a strain on people over 30 in particular. This is the result of the study “Mental health in the crisis” by the company health insurance company Pronova BKK, as the newspapers of the Funke media group reported on Thursday.

A total of 150 psychiatrists and psychotherapists were interviewed online for the survey in January and February 2023. They assessed the development of people’s mental health over the past three years of the crisis.

97 percent of those surveyed still consider the influence of the pandemic on their patients’ mental health problems to be very strong. “Lockdowns, working from home and homeschooling have often overstrained the nerves in families. Although the pandemic is almost over, the after-effects remain,” said Sabine Köhler, specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy. The corona crisis has intensified many symptoms in existing patients – “above all, excessive demands in family life and in raising children, but also fears.”

According to 82 percent, inflation and increased living costs are triggers for psychological problems, and the Ukraine war is 77 percent. With a share of 32 percent, the climate crisis apparently has a much smaller impact on people’s mental lives. The study also shows that tiredness, exhaustion and listlessness have increased noticeably in the last three years.

Lauterbach relies on better longCovid-Care

Wednesday April 19, 2023 6:26 am: Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach is relying on more information and better care offers for people with longer-lasting impairments after corona infections. The situation for many long-Covid-affected is dramatic, said the SPD politician on Tuesday evening at an event of the publishing group “Die Zeit” in Berlin. Unfortunately, there is still no reliable therapy for many severe courses. At the same time, a lot of existing information is too little known and too little disseminated.

Lauterbach confirmed the intention to invest 100 million euros in research into long-Covid care. He thinks this is necessary and is also optimistic. The funds for this are currently being discussed in the negotiations on the federal budget. It is conceivable that around ten specialized centers nationwide could develop and coordinate studies. It does not make sense to examine the same concepts everywhere. There are differences in men and women, since their immune systems also differ.

Lauterbach explained that the ministry wants to put the existing knowledge on a website where doctors and those affected can obtain reliable information. A telephone hotline is also planned to support this.

WHO: Covid vaccines saved over a million lives in Europe

Monday, April 17, 00:03: According to a scientific estimate, corona vaccines have saved more than a million lives in Europe and countries of the former Soviet Union since the end of 2020. This emerges from a report by the World Health Organization (WHO) published on Monday. This number was calculated on the basis of the number of deaths and the doses of vaccine administered in 26 countries. According to the report, more than two million people have died of Covid-19 in the WHO region of Europe since the outbreak of the corona pandemic around three years ago.

The effectiveness of the vaccines was weighted differently depending on the prevailing corona variant for the respective waves of the pandemic. Indirect effects of the vaccinations were not taken into account. Most of the people (96 percent) saved by the vaccines were older than 60, according to the report. A particularly large number of deaths could be prevented during the omicron wave. The number of lives saved by vaccination during this phase was estimated at almost 570,000.

The WHO’s Director of Division for Europe, Richard Pebody, called on unvaccinated people to be protected. “We see through our research the large number of lives that have been saved by the Covid-19 vaccines across Europe during the pandemic,” Pebody said in a statement.

The Europe region of the World Health Organization comprises 53 countries, including the member states of the European Union and the European Economic Area, Russia and several countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

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