According to the latest data released by the Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s federal disease control agency, as of 00:00 local time on November 21, a total of 902,528 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in Germany, 23,964 new cases in a single day, and 13,884 deaths have been accumulated.
Meanwhile, the Robert Koch Institute’s pandemic report on the same day also showed that the R value of the COVID-19 human-to-person transmission index continued to grow to 1.05 over the past seven days.
means that every 100 people infected with the novel coronavirus can be infected to an average of 101 people. Only when the R value is less than 1 for a long time can the spread of the epidemic be gradually slowing down.
In this regard, many experts believe that this shows that so far, the second round of blockade implemented by Germany since the beginning of November has not been effective.
In an interview with the media on the 21st, Kekule, a virologist at the University of Haller in Germany, suggested that epidemic prevention measures should be further tightened, especially those related to school restrictions.
On the one hand, he agreed that primary and secondary schools and kindergartens should continue to remain open while complying with the provisions of epidemic prevention and hygiene.
On the other hand, he called on schools that have not been closed to immediately adopt a strict classification system and implement staggered classes.
In addition, in Kekule’s view, the winter holiday should start a week earlier (i.e. December 17). At present, most federal states start winter holidays on December 19, while others only start on December 23.
Kekule pointed out that after the mandatory wearing of masks, the risk of infection in schools is not caused by contact in the classroom, but mainly focuses on students’ after-school meeting parties.
Therefore, early winter holidays can effectively improve this situation.
