Critical care doctors in Germany called on government for nationwide shutdown to contain third wave of coronavirus

The doctors in intensive care units in Germany They alerted this Saturday that the only way to contain the third wave of coronavirus ravaging the country is with a nationwide lockdown for two weeks.

The head of the Interdisciplinary Association of Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, Christian Karagiannidis, recommended a mixture of “Hard confinement, vaccinations and tests” to try to reduce the pressure on the units, and called on politicians to forget about short-term reopening measures, in newspaper statements Rheinische substation.

In the last 24 hours, Germany recorded 20,472 new infections and 157 deaths from COVID-19 disease, reported the Robert Koch Institute of Virology (RKI).

The weekly incidence of the coronavirus pandemic reaches 124.9 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, the highest level since January 19, according to the RKI. On Friday it was 119.1 and two weeks ago 76.1 per 100,000 population.

The weekly incidence and number of infections, after restrictions approved in December, experienced a phase with a downward trend until mid-February.

Then the trend reversed, attributed by experts to the presence of more contagious variants of the virus, especially the British.

In this regard, the country’s Chancellor Angela Merkel warned last Thursday “New pandemic” of the coronavirus due to the spread of mutations, in particular British, which he described as “more aggressive and contagious” but he trusted that with vaccination you can see “the light at the end of the tunnel”.

“He won our hand”Merkel said in the Bundestag (Parliament) in reference to the extension of the UK variant of SARS-CoV-2.

However, The Chancellor is confident that expanding vaccines and stepping up and expanding testing to locate how and where the COVID-19 disease is spreading will help Germany and the European Union overcome the pandemic..

“We are in the third wave”said Merkel, who told MPs she understands citizens’ concerns, called upon to comply with strict measures restricting public life.

Since the start of the pandemic, there has been 2,755,225 infections confirmed in Germany. It is estimated that 2,477,500 people have defeated the disease while 75,780 have died from related causes.

Differences in the strategy to contain the COVID-19 pandemic

Confusion over Berlin’s coronavirus containment strategy has spread discord between the main ministers of the 16 federal states of Germany, some of which refuse to accept a plan to revert to tighter lockdown in areas where the infection rate remains relatively low.

However, a recent survey found that a large part of Germans are in favor of tougher measures rather than easing. According to a station survey ZDF, 36% want to tighten the measures while 31% prefer to maintain the current restrictions.

Only a quarter of those questioned were in favor of relaxing the measures.

(With information from EFE and Europa Press)

KEEP READING: