The chairwoman of the Marburger Bund medical association, Susanne Johna, is urging the federal states to act when the number of corona infections increases.
“Wherever the incidences are now going through the roof, the countries have to react with an FFP2 mask requirement in public transport and in publicly accessible indoor areas,” Johna told the newspapers of the Funke media group. The countries would have to “decide on the basis of reliable real-time monitoring how the infection process can be better contained in order not to overload the hospitals”.
The Bremen epidemiologist Hajo Zeeb also believes that stronger protective measures will soon be necessary. “We will need the recommendation or the obligation to wear masks again in a few weeks,” he told the editorial network Germany (RND). “We need distance rules at big events, in theaters and cinemas, back soon.” Personal behavior must be geared more towards Corona again in winter. “We need a higher willingness to vaccinate and greater caution.”
It is good that Corona is no longer as dramatic in public as it was a year or two ago, since many people are vaccinated today. “But it’s wrong that Corona has now almost completely disappeared from the public eye – that has to change quickly,” said Zeeb.
Streeck: Mandatory masks are not a panacea
The Bonn virologist Hendrik Streeck warned, however, “to believe that a mask requirement is now a panacea, that we will be able to fight the number of infections better again”. That’s probably not the case, he said on the “RTL Direkt” program.
In view of the rising corona numbers, more stringent measures are already being considered in the first federal states. On Wednesday, for example, considerations became known about reintroducing the obligation to wear masks in public buildings in Berlin. In Saarland, which recently had the highest seven-day incidence nationwide, the government initially made an appeal.
With a view to the situation in the hospitals, Marburger Bund chairwoman Johna said: “The staff is already walking on their gums again, I don’t like to imagine what the situation is like if the occupancy pressure is also caused by many Covid 19 cases continues to increase or even an additional wave of influenza builds up.”
The number of corona-infected patients is increasing
The occupancy of patients who tested positive for corona in the normal wards had increased by half compared to the previous week, and more Covid 19 patients were also seen in the intensive care units. All of this puts a strain on the staff, and the need for isolation also ties up time and bed capacities. “Many emergency rooms are already overloaded, and the rescue control centers in some federal states have difficulty finding free capacity for patients in ambulances,” said Johna.
Streeck said that there is always extreme stress in the hospitals every autumn and winter. “It’s just the wave of coughs and colds, these are the colds that come back.” Of course, you have to listen carefully to the hospitals and see what can be done.
Most recently, the German Hospital Society had already spoken out in favor of stricter protective measures such as the obligation to wear masks indoors when the number of corona rose sharply. Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach also called on the federal states on Wednesday to use the possibilities for corona measures in the amended Infection Protection Act, “in particular the obligation to wear masks indoors”.
General practitioners call for “adapted vaccination campaign”
The federal chairman of the German Association of General Practitioners, Markus Beier, called for an “adapted vaccination campaign” for the second corona booster vaccination. “The cold season has begun, the adapted vaccine is available in sufficient quantity: the vaccination rate should shoot up by now at the latest – but unfortunately it doesn’t,” said Beier to the RND.
The Standing Committee on Vaccination recommends a second booster vaccination for people aged 60 and over and groups with risk factors. According to data from the Robert Koch Institute, a good 28 percent of people over the age of 60 have had a second booster injected.
