SecondAnd the Minister of Health Jens Spann (CDU) One can imagine a new blockade to break the fourth wave of corona. When asked whether Germany will shut down all public life again, as announced by Austria, Spann said in Berlin on Friday: “We are in a situation where we should not rule out any possibility.”
Spann said that “a national emergency requires joint efforts across the country.” The number of infections continues to increase, the intensive care unit in some areas of the country has reached its limit, and the death rate is once again “regrettably high.” Due to delta variants and “too many unvaccinated people”, Germany is “in this pandemic again, if not the most difficult situation”. Spann warned that it was “twelve and five minutes.”
At the press conference, he joined with the Chairman of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) to appeal, Lothar Willer, Citizens receive basic immunization and the third vaccination (booster) to protect themselves and others from viruses and serious diseases. However, the two agreed that in view of the rapid development of the pandemic, only consistent contact restrictions, testing and access control based on the 2-G or 2-G plus principle can prevent the virus from spreading further quickly.
The reason is that vaccination only starts to work after a few weeks. “The truth is: only with vaccinations and boosters, we will not be able to break the wave we need now in the short term. So we need to take measures to limit contact,” Spann said.
Spahn: Most of our problems are not vaccinated
The acting minister welcomes the new corona regulations passed by the Prime Minister’s meeting on Thursday and the Bundestag, such as the revised infection protection law, but will implement uniform rules for the fight against epidemics, including “Lock down people who have not been vaccinatedPeople who have been vaccinated may also be infected, sick and spread the virus, but to a much smaller extent than those who have not been vaccinated. This relatively small group of 15 million unvaccinated adults “makes up our Most of the problems. This is the fact. “
Regarding the tools used to fight the pandemic, Spann said: “The important thing now is to implement this consistently, and most importantly, to monitor the implementation of these measures consistently,” the politician warned. Strictly following the 2-G-Plus rule can reduce the R value (a measure of infection spread) by 0.5 percentage points. It is currently 1.1. After reduction, it will be less than 1, which will reduce the number of new infections. Therefore, 2-G-Plus can make a “quite decisive difference.”
He drew attention to the fact that due to lack of intensive care capacity, more and more Covid-19 patients have to be transferred from one hospital to another. For example, in Munich, only 3% of the beds are still free, which is “almost none”. In Germany, many wards have only 15 intensive care beds. Even if 10% of them are free, they are only enough for new admissions. “Heart attack, unforeseen circumstances, it will be very, very difficult,” Spann said. Germany is moving towards a situation where, for the first time, a large number of patients must be transferred across regions, “possibly also transferred to neighboring countries.”
