Coronavirus: Germany in crisis mode

Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.

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The contact details of travelers from risk areas should now be recorded. In several federal states, possible further Sars-CoV-2 infected people are being searched for. The WHO is now speaking of a pandemic potential of the situation.

Hundreds in quarantine

(cf / dpa) - Around 400 people are quarantined at home in the Heinsberg district (North Rhine-Westphalia). Visitors to a carnival session in Gangelt, which an infected couple attended on February 15, are particularly affected. The measure also applies to the staff and children of the kindergarten in which the woman is employed as an educator. By Thursday evening, 14 more cases of infection had become known in North Rhine-Westphalia.

More dangerous than the flu?

According to the numbers known so far, the new virus could be more dangerous than the flu, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). According to previous figures, one to two percent of those infected with Sars-CoV-2 die, which is higher than with the flu. However, many inconspicuous infected people may not be included in this rate.

RKI President Lothar Wieler said on Thursday in Berlin how much higher the death rate with the new virus than with the flu actually is, can only be seen after the end of the epidemic.

WHO: "Pandemic Potential"

"This virus has pandemic potential," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in Geneva on Thursday. "If we don't take the right measures, this virus can get out of control."

Contact details of passengers from risk regions are recorded

A crisis team of the federal government of the Ministry of Health and the Interior decided not only to record the contact details of passengers from the country of origin China, but also passengers on flights from South Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy due to the spread of the virus in large parts of the world.

The aim is to be able to reach them quickly if a passenger was infected. Such "exit cards" should also be filled out on ships and in cross-border train and bus traffic, as Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) and Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) emphasized.

Asylum seekers are tested

Seehofer said that asylum seekers would now also be tested for the new corona virus as part of the standard health checks. He pointed out that many of them came to Germany through “pre-stressed” countries such as Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan.

On this Friday, the crisis team wants to deal with the handling of major events. The ITB in Berlin, for example, the world's largest tourism fair (March 4th to 8th) is being put to the test. Internationally, the Olympic Games in Japan could be canceled.

Infected in 15 European countries

There are now cases in at least 15 European countries, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). The first cases were reported from other countries, such as Israel, Denmark, Norway, Estonia and Romania. In Italy there is the largest outbreak in Europe with around 530 infected people and at least 14 deaths. A hotel was also cordoned off on the Spanish holiday island of Tenerife, which lies in front of Africa. The affected guests demand an evacuation.

50 million euros for the WHO

To combat the novel virus, the federal government plans to pay an additional 50 million euros to the World Health Organization (WHO), which has calculated a need of 675 million dollars by the end of April. So far, only a fraction of it has been made available by the international community.

Sars-CoV-2 can cause the lung disease Covid-19. Most infected people have only mild cold symptoms, such as chills and sore throats, or no symptoms at all. 15 out of 100 infected people became seriously ill, said the head of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) on Thursday. They get breathing problems or pneumonia.

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