6:54 pm: EMA gives green light to Sanofi’s corona vaccine
The European medicines agency EMA has given the green light for the approval of a corona booster vaccine from French pharmaceutical company Sanofi. The vaccine developed jointly by Sanofi and the British company GlaxoSmithKline is suitable as a booster vaccine for adults after previous vaccination with preparations from Biontech / Pfizer, Moderna and those from Astrazeneca and Johnson & Johnson, EMA said Thursday.
Studies have shown that the booster vaccine is effective against the omicron variant of the coronavirus, the agency said. Sanofi and GSK had developed the “next generation” vaccine at the same time as their core vaccine, which is still pending approval.
18:29: Söder for the end of the obligation of the mask on trains
Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) has spoken out in favor of the end of the mask requirement on trains. “It is difficult to understand why there is the obligation of the mask on the train but not on the plane,” the boss of the CSU told the newspapers of the media group Funke. Germany is now at a stage where personal responsibility is emerging.
Everyone can be vaccinated or wear a mask if they want, Söder said. In hospitals and care facilities, special caution is still required. If not, however, protective measures should be phased out gradually.
The Bavarian prime minister also supported the redefinition of the isolation obligation. Infected people should therefore only stay home if they have symptoms.
6:04 pm: RKI Weekly Report: Several key crown figures continue to decline
According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), several key figures on last week’s corona pandemic suggest a downward trend. The seven-day incidence, for example, has dropped across all federal states, the decrease being 35 percent in a weekly comparison, as can be seen from the institute’s weekly Covid 19 report Thursday night. “The school vacation factor, which affects both contact and test behavior, has yet to be considered,” he says. The report largely refers to last week, when most federal states had a public holiday Monday or Tuesday.
RKI also sees a further decline in severe illness. As in previous weeks, there are now high-pressure warnings of infection in the fall – not just regarding Covid-19, but other respiratory illnesses as well. The waves of influenza and RSV have already begun. RSV stands for respiratory syncytial virus.
16:31: Federal Court of Justice: no gap in criminal responsibility for falsified vaccination cards
According to a landmark decision by the Federal Court of Justice (BGH), counterfeiters of crown vaccination cards cannot hope for impunity due to a legal loophole. If a defendant cannot be found guilty of falsifying health certificates, a conviction for falsification of documents can still be considered, the BGH ruled. With this sentence, the V Criminal Senate has filled an alleged gap in criminal responsibility. The decision refers to the legal situation that applied until November 2021. Subsequently, the Criminal Code was amended.
16:24: EU committee recommends Biontech booster vaccination for children
The European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) recommends the adapted Covid vaccine from Biontech and Pfizer as a booster in children aged five to eleven. The European Commission will review the CHMP’s recommendation and a decision is expected shortly, Biontech said. The vaccine adapted to the BA.4-5 virus variants is already approved as a booster for older children.
12:52 pm: The concert industry suffers from the long-term effects of the crown
Although festivals and concerts are again allowed without hygiene requirements, the Bavarian event industry still has major problems. Concerts are repeatedly canceled and entire tours are canceled. However, the reasons for this are different in Autumn 2022 compared to Autumn 2020. Many have not attended a concert for two or more years. The pandemic and the lockdown forced them to reorganize their free time. Regular customers who regularly went to concerts prefer to spend the evening on the sofa even after the lockdown is over. The priorities in recreational activities have changed, also due to the increase in the cost of living.
12:20 pm: AstraZeneca is no longer planning to approve the vaccine in the United States
Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca waives plans to approve its corona vaccine in the United States. The company has decided to withdraw its application for approval, says CEO Pascal Soriot. In the USA, vaccines from BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna are mainly used. According to “Our World in Data”, AstraZeneca’s vaccine has hardly found any buyers in the EU since late summer 2021. Biontech is the most widely used there.
7.25: Covid numbers increase in China, Guangzhou before the complete lockdown?
Despite the strict zero-Covid policy: in China, the crown numbers continue to grow. More recently, nearly 9,000 new infections have been registered nationwide. It is the largest outbreak since the spring, when Shanghai was on lockdown for two months. By far the majority of cases are in Guangzhou, in the far south of the country. Almost 3 thousand new infections have recently been found in the city of about 15 million inhabitants.
Millions of people are already confined to their homes and schools, factories and shops are closed. Authorities have ordered mass tests. Observers expect the economic metropolis to be stalled if the numbers continue to rise. There are also larger outbreaks in the capital Beijing and the Chongqing metropolis.
6:00 am: The seven-day incidence decreased again
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the seven-day national incidence Thursday morning as 262.3. This is evident from the numbers reflecting the RKI dashboard status at 5am. The day before, the value of new coronary infections per 100,000 population and week was 294.1 (previous week: 289.6; previous month: 598.1). However, this information only provides a very incomplete picture of the number of infections. Experts have long speculated that there will be a large number of cases not registered by the RKI, mainly because by far not all infected people have performed a PCR test. Only positive PCR tests count in the statistics. Furthermore, delayed recordings or transmission problems can lead to a distortion of individual daily values.
German health authorities recently reported 38,668 new corona infections (previous week: 78,629) and 175 deaths (previous week: 281) to RKI in one day. Again, data comparisons are only possible to a limited extent due to test behavior, late registrations or transmission problems. In general, the number of new infections and deaths recorded varies significantly from weekday to weekday, as many federal states do not report them to RKI, especially on weekends, and report their cases throughout the week.
The RKI has counted 35,971,322 confirmed Sars-CoV-2 infections since the start of the pandemic. The actual total number is likely to be significantly higher, as many infections go undetected.
