The incidence of new corona infections in Germany has risen sharply again.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the seven-day incidence on Friday morning as 303.4.

The day before it was 285.9, a week ago it was 214.9.

The value quantifies the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants over a period of seven days.

The incidence is again as high as it was last before Christmas.

As the RKI now announced, citing data from the health authorities, 56,335 new infections were recorded within 24 hours.

It was the third day in a row with more than 50,000 new infections.

A week ago it was 41,270.

In addition, 264 new coronavirus-related deaths were counted on Wednesday.

According to the latest information from the RKI, the health authorities have recorded a total of 7,417,995 cases of infection since the start of the pandemic.

The total number of registered corona deaths in Germany rose to 113,632.

The institute put the number of people recovered from illness caused by the coronavirus in Germany at around 6,664,800.

Omicron content at more than forty percent

The RKI has removed the warning that fewer tests and reports were expected during the holidays and at the turn of the year.

It had previously been said that the RKI numbers probably did not provide a complete picture of the infection situation in Germany.

In November, 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.

According to the latest RKI report from Thursday, the nationwide hospitalization incidence was 3.26.

The proportion of the virus variant Omikron in the infection rate is increasing rapidly.

According to reporting data from the federal states, 44.3 percent of the corona evidence examined for variants was due to Omikron in calendar week 52 (until 2.1.), As the RKI wrote.

A week earlier, the value was given as 15.8 percent.

The count includes both evidence based on genetic analysis and suspected cases based on so-called variant-specific PCR tests.

"Current events in Germany are increasingly determined by the worrying variant Omikron," writes the RKI.

The proportion of the delta variant, which until a few weeks ago almost exclusively dominated the infection process, is steadily decreasing.

Older people who have been vaccinated with full basic protection against corona have a significantly higher risk of hospitalization on average than people with an additional booster vaccination.

This is shown by the latest data from the RKI.

The incidence of hospitalization among boosted persons aged 60 and over in calendar week 51 (until December 26th) was 1.3.

For seniors with full basic protection, the value was three times as high.

By far the greatest risk of having to go to hospital for Covid-19, however, had unvaccinated people with an incidence of 29.1.

Late registrations are expected for calendar week 51.