A health worker is caring for a Covid-19 patient in the ICU ward of Robert Bosch Hospital in Stuttgart, Germany, on Tuesday, January 12, 2021.
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It’s no secret that Germany has seen a surge in coronavirus cases in recent weeks, but a leading health expert in the country is now warning of “exponential growth” in the number of infections.
This comes at a time when the country has suspended use of the AstraZeneca-University of Oxford coronavirus vaccine.
Epidemiologist Dirk Brockmann, an expert at the Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases, said a recent relaxation of Covid restrictions has allowed a more virulent variant of the virus, first discovered in the UK late last year, spread quickly.
“We are right on the flank of the third wave. That is no longer disputable. And at this point we have relaxed the restrictions and that is accelerating exponential growth,” Brockmann told German broadcaster ARD on Tuesday.
“It was completely irrational to slow down on this. It’s just fueling this exponential growth,” he said.
Germany has been praised for its first response to the pandemic, managing to keep the number of cases down through an effective track & trace regime and keep the mortality rate low thanks to its modern hospital infrastructure.
But in recent months, during the winter and faced with new, more virulent variants of the virus, it has proved difficult to control infections. The slow EU rollout of vaccines has not helped matters, as the bloc has been criticized for slower vaccine procurement and deployment. The rollout of vaccinations in Germany has faced several hurdles, frustrating officials and health experts in the country.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and state leaders agreed earlier this month to gradually ease restrictions, along with an “emergency brake” that would allow authorities to change course if infections exceed 100 per month on three consecutive days. 100,000 rises.
The emergency brake, the government said, had been considered “in case we experience exponential growth” of cases. Merkel and regional leaders are expected to review the measures on March 22, where they will decide whether to move on to the next step of reopening or not.
The number of cases per 100,000 reported Tuesday was 83.7, up from 68 a week ago, and the RKI has said the metric could hit 200 by the middle of next month, Reuters noted in a report Tuesday.
Germany’s closure is currently running until at least March 28, but some restrictions have already been relaxed, with the reopening of schools, daycare centers and hairdressers at the beginning of the month.
After that, bookstores and florists were allowed to reopen and a week ago also some museums. However, regional rules can vary, with states being given discretion on how and when to reopen given rates.
On March 22, Germany’s five-point plan to reopen was to allow some outdoor dining options, theaters and cinemas to reopen. But the rising number of infections could derail that timetable.
Suspension of the vaccine
The top epidemiologist’s comments come now that Germany and a handful of other European countries have decided to suspend use of the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, out of concern over reports of blood clots in a handful of vaccinated people.
The move has baffled experts around the world, with the World Health Organization and the European Medicines Agency (both conducting a safety assessment of the vaccine) both insisting that all available evidence shows that the vaccine is safe and effective and does not lead to a higher risk of blood clots, which are common in the general population.
The vaccine manufacturer itself has emphasized that the data shows that the number of blood clots in the vaccinated population is actually lower than what might have been naturally expected.
WHO and the EMA, which will publish the findings of their safety review on Thursday, say the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks and that countries should not interrupt their immunization programs. Nevertheless, more than a dozen European countries have discontinued its use. This could lead to a dangerous increase in infections and deaths, experts say.
“The latest figures suggest 40 fatalities for every 20 million vaccinated with Astra-Zeneca shots. Each individual case is always dire, but this, as a percentage, is not statistically significant. Instead, vaccination delays cost Europe an additional 2,000. deaths per day, and tens of billions of euros in lockdowns, closed businesses, ” Guido Cozzi, professor of macroeconomics at the University of St. Gallen, said in a note on Tuesday.
Even as public health agencies such as WHO and EMA reiterate on Thursday that the vaccine is safe, experts fear more damage has already been done to the vaccine’s reputation.
AstraZeneca’s vaccine has already faced several hurdles, ranging from question marks over research methodology and data, misguided hesitation about the vaccine’s efficacy in people over 65, and disputes over delays in delivery to the EU. Real-life data shows that the vaccine is extremely effective in preventing severe Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths in adults.