Germany’s federal disease control agency and the Ministry of Health held a press conference on the latest situation of the pandemic on the 29th, saying that although the country’s pandemic figures are showing a “positive trend” under a series of strict blockade measures, there are also more and more confirmed cases of variant COVID-19, and the related cluster infections are frequent. It’s very worrying.
Willler, director of the Robert Koch Institute, said at a press conference on the same day that since there is still little information about variant coronavirus, it is impossible to confirm whether vaccinators or recoverers from COVID-19 will still be infected, so people must be highly vigilant to prevent the spread of variant coronavirus from causing the number of infected people in Germany.
Strong rebound again. He pointed out that German hospitals are still on the verge of limit, and if the number of new cases begins to increase again, intensive care beds will be overloaded.
According to German Federal Health Minister Spahn at a press conference on the 29th, 150 confirmed cases of variant COVID-19 have been confirmed throughout Germany.
Among them, the fastest spread is the first coronavirus variant strain in the United Kingdom, with 120 confirmed cases, 18 last year and 102 in less than a month this year.
The variant virus infection from South Africa and Brazil is not so serious, with 27 confirmed cases and 3 cases respectively.
However, Spahn admitted that German health authorities began targeted testing for variant coronavirus only late, so they are working to better monitor the relevant infections by expanding the scale of gene sequencing.
According to the plan of the Federal Ministry of Health, if there are more than 70,000 confirmed cases in Germany in a week, at least 5% of the samples will be genetically sequenced; if there are less than 70,000 cases, at least 10% of them will be genetically sequenced.
Meanwhile, Spahn said he was well understood that people were impatient because the vaccination work was not smooth or the appointment hotline was often not connected, and warned that Germany “is afraid that it will continue to face a shortage of vaccines for several weeks” because the number of vaccines delivered to the EU was lower than expected.
However, Spahn still believes that the coronavirus vaccine will bring hope to the country’s anti-pandemic work.
He confidently predicts that Germany can complete the vaccination of people over 80 who are willing to be vaccinated in the first quarter of this year, and all those who are willing to be vaccinated before the summer.
It is worth mentioning that although the European Drug Administration is expected to approve the launch of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine in the European Union later in the day, Spahn stressed that Germany will review the vaccine again after that, and may refine the age restrictions for the applicable population.
Because the Vaccine Commission of the German Federal Disease Control Agency has recommended that AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine be vaccinated only on people between the ages of 18 and 64, citing no evidence that the vaccine is effective for people over 65.
