Counties with more than 50 new corona infections per 100,000 inhabitants should pull the “emergency brake” in the event of loosening after the agreement between the federal and state governments. This currently affects four circles. However, many others are “Corona-free”.
Another district has reached the upper limit for new corona infections set by the federal and state governments: In the southern Thuringian district of Sonneberg, the value on Sunday morning was 66.7 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants, as a spokesman for the district office told the news agency dpa. A total of 155 infections had been detected in the district by then.
The federal and state governments had agreed on a significant relaxation of the corona requirements on Wednesday. At the same time, however, they decided that a restriction concept should be implemented if more than 50 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants were registered within one week in districts or independent cities – a so-called “emergency brake”.
Three other districts had previously exceeded this limit: Greiz in Thuringia, Coesfeld in North Rhine-Westphalia and Steinburg in Schleswig-Holstein. They are marked in red on the corresponding map of the Robert Koch Institute. Eight other counties are orange: More than 25 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants per week were registered here. The RKI numbers are updated once a day at midnight.
Numerous counties “Corona-free”
According to the Landramtsamt, a hospital in Sonneberg is a focus of infection. Employees were also infected here. In coordination with the clinic, a temporary admission stop was therefore decided there on Friday evening. The emergency room is not affected. The treatment of critical and life-threatening cases is ensured. But there are also new infections in the district outside the hospital. “We will continue to monitor and examine the situation very critically and, if necessary, take harder measures as part of the new regulation,” emphasized the spokesman.
This is already the case in Coesfeld: here the easing has been postponed by a week. In the region and in the Schleswig-Holstein Steinburg, this is directly related to the many corona cases in slaughterhouses. Hundreds of primarily Eastern European workers were infected there, apparently because their collective accommodations did not have sufficient hygiene facilities and they were too narrow to maintain the minimum distance of 1.5 meters.
According to the RKI overview, the vast majority of counties in Germany are currently well below the upper limit for new corona infections. In numerous circles, no new cases have even been registered within the past seven days. These include the Hessian Vogelsbergkreis, Uelzen in Lower Saxony or Haßberge in Bavaria. Several cities in the district had no new infections in the past week – such as Baden-Baden, Bamberg, Würzburg, Jena, Cottbus, Pirmasens or Schwerin.
Criticism of the upper limit
The upper limit of corona is also criticized. The German Foundation for Patient Protection, for example, criticizes it as too high. “While it was said at the beginning that politicians obeyed the virologists, the warnings of the experts are now being ignored,” said the board of directors of the foundation, Eugen Brysch. Instead of 50, a maximum of 35 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants would now be appropriate to prevent a second wave of infections. Brysch complained that solidarity with the people in the high-risk group had been exhausted. In individual cases, counties with critical values tried to circumvent stricter containment measures. “This is fatal in the current situation,” warned Brysch and demanded that the countries set binding standards for districts and cities.
The Greens in the Bundestag demanded more clarity from the federal government and the federal states on how to deal with the Corona crisis. They propose five corona warning levels with corresponding test requirements. Media reported on a concept of the Greens, which takes into account the different regional development events. The five levels range from so-called hotspots to regions in which there are almost no cases. In the hotspot regions with a particularly large number of infections, all people should be tested as a precaution. Only in regions with the lowest corona warning level should only people with symptoms be tested along the previous recommendations of the Robert Koch Institute. A relapse and a second wave could only be prevented by “close-knit and regionally adapted controls”, Green Party leader Katrin Göring-Eckardt told the AFP news agency.
