BERLIN – Germany’s National Center for Disease Control reported a record number of new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, as one of the country’s top virologists warned another lockdown would be needed if vaccinations did not ramp up quickly .
The 39,676 cases recorded by the Robert Koch Institute surpassed the previous daily record of 37,120 new cases reported on Friday. The institute said the infection rate in Germany had risen to 232.1 new cases per 100,000 population in the past seven days.
“We have a real emergency situation right now,” said Christian Drosten, head of the virology department at Charite Hospital in Berlin, of the situation in many hospital intensive care units across the country. “We have to do something now.”
Government officials have repeatedly said they have no plans to impose any closures and instead called on residents to get vaccinated.
Germany currently has an interim national government following the September federal elections. The parties slated to form the next government plan to introduce legislation this week that would allow a declaration since March 2020 of a “national epidemic situation” to expire at the end of the month and provide a new legal framework to institute the coronavirus measurements.
As during other periods of the pandemic, the country has a patchwork of regional rules. Most places restrict access to many indoor facilities and events to people who have been vaccinated against the virus, have recovered from COVID-19 or have recently received negative test results – the latter category now being excluded in some regions. However, the rules are often applied lax.
Several hospitals have said in recent days that they are working to their limits again and have intensive care units so full of COVID-19 patients that they cannot admit new patients at this time.
The Berlin Charity said on Tuesday it had to cancel planned surgeries due to the number of staff caring for people with COVID-19. Authorities said most of the last patients are not vaccinated.
About 67% of Germany’s population of 83 million is fully vaccinated, according to official figures. Unlike some other European countries, the government has been reluctant to make vaccines mandatory for all occupational groups.
“We probably need to control infection activity again with contact measures – not likely, but certainly,” he said.
“We are in a bad situation: we have 15 million people who could have been vaccinated and should have been vaccinated,” Drosten said, adding that at least 100,000 more people could die from COVID-19 if vaccinations do not resume not quickly.
Since the start of the pandemic, 96,963 people have died from COVID-19 in Germany, according to official figures.
The country’s standing committee on vaccinations, Stiko, released a new recommendation on Wednesday advising everyone under the age of 30 to receive only the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Le Stiko said the recommendation was based on recent analyzes showing that a rare side effect, heart and chest inflammation, was seen more frequently in recipients under the age of 30 of the vaccine made by Moderna than those who received the vaccine. Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The side effect seems to be rare, and in most cases people recover without any problems.
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