The nationwide seven-day incidence of new corona infections has again decreased slightly.

According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) on Thursday morning, the value was 422.3.

The day before it was 427.0, a week ago it was 439.2.

The RKI initially stated the incidence as 338.1 early Thursday morning, but later corrected the information.

As the RKI further announced, citing data from the health authorities, 70,611 new infections were recorded within 24 hours.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the health authorities have reported a total of 6,362,232 cases.

The institute put the number of people recovered from illness caused by the coronavirus in Germany at around 5,278,300.

The total number of corona deaths in Germany rose by 465 to 104,512.

69,601 new infections and 527 deaths were reported on Wednesday, 73,209 new infections and 388 fatalities a week ago.

Effective measures or overload?

The seven-day incidence indicates the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants within a week.

The value has risen rapidly since the beginning of November.

As a result, new highs were recorded every day.

At the end of November it had fallen slightly for the first time in weeks.

According to the RKI, this could on the one hand be an indication of the effectiveness of the contact restrictions.

On the other hand, it could also be a sign of the overburdening of the health sector and exhausted laboratory capacities, as new infections in particularly affected regions are no longer fully recorded.

On November 18, the federal and state governments set the so-called hospitalization incidence as the decisive yardstick for tightening the corona measures.

This value indicates how many people per 100,000 inhabitants are in hospital within seven days because of a corona infection.

From a value of three, the 2G rule applies across the board for events in a federal state - that is, only those vaccinated against the coronavirus and those recovered from Covid-19 are allowed.

According to the RKI, the nationwide hospitalization incidence on Wednesday was 5.79.