The mystery of the spread of the coronavirus in Germany, where yesterday the number of infected people exceeded 450, is that most of them took it inside the country. Only a minority became infected abroad, just over 60 in Italy and 14 in Iran. The director of the Robert Koch Institut, Lothar Wieler, explained yesterday, who is responsible for monitoring and evaluating the situation. And a 33-year-old German man may have been, in January, the first European to have contracted the infection of the new Sars-CoV-2 and to have transmitted it, according to a letter from German doctors published yesterday on New England Journal of Medicine. The epidemic continues to widen, but the pace remains considerably slower than the Italian one. To specific question, Wieler did not want or knew how to give an answer as to why, but warned that the numbers of the infections will continue to rise and that we must prepare for the first deaths. Two people are in danger of life in North Rhine Westphalia, the most affected Land with over 270 infected. In any case, the Koch Institut is also developing a Pandemieplan, which would only be triggered if there were first signs of a pandemic.
For the moment, Wieler said, the strategy remains containment, pending the first therapies to be identified. The doctor said he was optimistic that drugs could be available in Germany by the end of the month, even if a vaccine is not mentioned before next year. Wieler, however, said he did not believe that there are significant submerged figures in Germany: “There are always for every disease, but they are not a high figure because we are testing intensively”.
The coronavirus emergency it is intertwined with the annual flu peak, which has affected nearly 120,000 people in Germany since the beginning of the year, causing 202 deaths, according to data released yesterday by the Ministry of Health. Any pneumonia caused by the flu makes groups at risk such as the elderly easier potential victims. For this reason, the director of the Koch Institut invited the population to keep themselves informed and to collaborate, staying at home at the first symptoms of cough or fever.
The restrictive measures are expanding in all areas. The number of flights canceled by Lufthansa between now and March 31 has risen to 7,100, almost 25% of all connections of the German carrier. The new cancellations are mainly on the internal routes (towards the most affected Land) and on those towards Northern Italy. From next Sunday and until March 28, the flag companion will no longer fly to Israel, which had banned all flights from Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The worry of blocking the infection spreads to sports. The City of Nuremberg has asked the German Football Association to cancel the friendly Germany-Italy, scheduled for March 31 in the Bavarian city: “There would be many fans from the risk areas of Northern Italy”.
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