German Health Minister Advocates Increasing COVID-19 Safety Measures As COVID-19 Infections And Hospitalizations Rise. What Variants At Play Are Not Known!
Source: COVID-19 News Oct 15, 2022 2 years, 1 month, 1 week, 22 hours, 34 minutes ago
COVID-19 News: Germany’s Health Minister German Karl Lauterbach media on Friday that he favors and advocates requiring mask-wearing indoors, a measure that has largely faded in Germany except on public transport, in medical facilities and care homes.
He also urged the 16 states in the country to consider stepping up their COVID-19 prevention and safety measures as cases rise in the country.
https://www.bild.de/ratgeber/gesundheit/ratgeber/lauterbach-fordert-maskenpflicht-in-innenraeumen-81616552.bild.html
According to date supplied by the Robert Koch Institut, Germany saw 114,198 New COVID-19 infections and 165 COVID-19 deaths in the last 24 hours. In the same period, a total of 3,174 new hospital admissions were recorded. Data form the 13
th of October 2022 shows that there are 1,710 patients in ICU due to COVID-19. About 8.2 percent of all hospital beds in the country are occupied due to COVID-19 cases.
https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Situationsberichte/Okt_2022/2022-10-14-en.pdf?__blob=publicationFile
However, the German Health minister did warn that the actual number of cases could be three-to-four times higher, as many positive results with rapid tests are never reported to authorities.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/german-health-minister-urges-stepped-covid-19-measures-91497005
It should be noted that Germany is one of the few countries in the world with very transparent reporting procedures and where collation of all medical statistics is carefully carried out and audited by different independent agencies and is free from any political cover-ups.
Even the methodology as to how COVID-19 deaths are ascertained and classified and practiced in hospitals across the country is standardized and transparent to everyone including the next of kin of the deceased.
Although hospitalizations and deaths are increasing as pointed out by data from the Robert Koch Institut, it is still too early to really identify which SARS-CoV-2 variants or sub-lineages could be at play in Germany as currently there are a a huge number of variants and sub-lineages in circulation and in reality, data from sites like GISAID, cov-Spectrum or even by analysis by leading virologists or computational biologists
can sometimes be misleading as not every case of COVID-19 infection is sent for genomic sequencing and the number of those samples sent for sequencing versus the number of actual covid infections is very small and does not really represent what is happening in real time at any moment in any population.
Sometimes
COVID-19 News outlets mislead by these data and also analysis presented on some of the personal twitter accounts of some these ‘experts&rsquo
; can actually end up presenting the wrong news for instance they are so many claims at the moment that the variant BQ.1.1 are driving surges in parts of the world….. with the exception of data showing increases in sequences of that particular variant in specific countries versus many other prevailing variants and sub-lineages, in real time that might not be the case and there could be many factors at play that is causing the surges or even other variants and sub-lineages.
The only solution for is for every country to make genomic sequencing for every single reported COVID-19 infection mandatory. (Although, there is a high cost involved…that can actually be brought down by economies of scale and proper innovations). Such a move will not only help the scientific and medical community to get a real and proper perspective of what variants are at play and a proper view of the virus evolution but it can even help procure more data about the clinical characteristics and manifestations of each variant and even help in not only treating patients but also stopping the spread and further viral evolution of the pathogen by quick and decisive strategies.
The other alternative, which certain governments would prefer and also considering the online bickering among some of these virologists, independent researchers, computational biologists and media along with their egoistic attitudes is to simply close down all such genomic sequencing reporting sites and accounts and let the world navigate the pandemic in the dark and simply assume all the variants are homogenous and are mild till something drastic happens! (A stupid suggestion but one that might help certain authorties in many countries trying to play down the COVID-19 situation and to move on with the economy!)
The German health minister warned "The direction we're going in isn't a good one.”
He stressed that it would be better for states to impose limited restrictions now than stricter ones later. He said, "The sooner we step on the brake the better it will be.”
https://www.thelocal.de/20221014/german-health-minister-urges-states-to-bring-back-mask-wearing-indoors/
The German health minister is one of the few respected health authorities who is taking the right initiatives in dealing with the ongoing and COVID-19 crisis and also impending surges. Though others like to downwplay the seriousness of COVID-19, it should be noted that even asymptomatic or even mild symptomatic infections can cause lots of medical issues in the long term and in some cases even result in fatal outcomes. (There is a lot of peer reviewed published studies on this.)
Germany has also launched a massive TV vaccination campaign encouraging everyone to get fully vaccinated and to get the new bivalent boosters.
It was reported that at the moment only about 76.3 percent of the population have basic immunization.
https://impfdashboard.de/en/
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