The nationwide seven-day incidence has continued to decline. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the value of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week this Tuesday morning at 669.9. For comparison, the previous day the value had been 808.8, a week ago 1087.2, a month ago 1735.0.

Health offices reported 22,483 new Corona infections to the RKI within one day. A week ago, there were 162,790 - but that Monday was not a holiday.

With the values it is to be considered that individual countries do not report on each weekday data, on weekend, for example, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Lower Saxony, Brandenburg and Saxonia not or not completely. Fewer reports are also expected on public holidays. This in turn leads to additional reports on subsequent days. This makes it increasingly difficult to compare daily values. In addition, experts have for some time been assuming a high number of cases not recorded by the RKI - due to overburdened health authorities and because not all infected persons have a PCR test. Only these count in the statistics.

According to the new data, seven deaths were recorded in Germany within 24 hours. A week ago, there had been 289 deaths - although it should be noted that that Monday was a normal working day. The number of people who died from or with the involvement of a proven infection with the Sars-CoV-2 virus thus rose to 132,960.

The RKI counted 23,459,628 confirmed infections with Sars-CoV-2 since the beginning of the pandemic. The actual total number is likely to be much higher, as many infections are not detected.

Stefan Kluge, head of the Department of Intensive Care Medicine at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, says the further development of the coronavirus is uncertain. "No expert can currently say for sure which variant we will get in the fall," Kluge, who is also a member of the presidium of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI), told the Funke Media Group. "But we should be prepared for the possibility that another variant may come along that leads to a higher severity of illness than is currently the case with the Omicron variant."

Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) had drawn criticism with warnings of a possible "killer variant" of the coronavirus. Kluge commented, "Calling a corona variant a "killer variant" is inappropriate." He said there are other infections where mortality is much higher than has been the case with Covid-19. These include severe bacterial sepsis (blood poisoning), for example. "The Omicron variant currently results in very few severe Covid-19 courses," Kluge explained. "We currently have a mortality of less than 0.1 percent with Omicron, comparable to influenza."

Kluge advised launching a campaign to try to get unvaccinated people over age 60 to get vaccinated against coronavirus. "Greater basic immunization in the population would help us significantly. In addition, vaccines need to be advanced."

Image by Gerd Altmann