Monitoring is essential, says Germany as virus resurges

GERMANY’S disease control agency has said that new cases of coronavirus need to be “closely monitored” after the rate of reproduction rose sharply over the weekend.

Both the measurements Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI) uses to assess the progress of the coronavirus rose over the value of two on Sunday, well above the critical value of one.

While the 4-day R number, which measures the mean number of people infected by one person, rose to 2.88, the seven-day average - seen as a more reliable indicator of the virus’s progress - also rose to 2.03.

The steep rise in the R number has caused the RKI to reassess the seriousness of the situation.

While on Saturday it was still saying that it did not expect a nationwide increase in numbers, yesterday evening it warned that “further developments need to be monitored closely during the upcoming days, especially in regard to whether case numbers are increasing outside of outbreak contexts”.

Both measurements the RKI uses to assess the progress of the virus had risen well over the critical value of one on Saturday. The four-day rate of reproduction, which measures the mean number of people infected by one person, rose to 1.79, while the seven-day average – seen as a more reliable indicator of the virus’s progress – rose to 1.55.

The institute explained that a small number of local outbreaks had skewed the results. The most severe outbreak hit Gütersloh, where more than 1,000 workers at a slaughterhouse tested positive. Schools and kindergartens in the city were closed, with local politicians not ruling out putting the entire 100,000 population back into lockdown. Armin Laschet, state leader in North Rhine-westphalia, where the Tönnies slaughterhouse was situated, described the outbreak as “the biggest yet” in the state of 18million people.